Let me repeat that last bit: mobile does not equal less.
I love the way TechCrunch solved the ugly social sharing button issue. The actual share buttons appear when you rollover the social icons that fit into the overall look and feel of the site.
(Source: TechCrunch)
“- Don’t hav a logotype that takes up 50% of the screen
- Make sure some of your content is visible on the first screen, otherwise users will have a hard time understanding that they have in fact navigated to a new page.
- Use a mobile device for your design and mockup work to visualize how little space you have to play with. Also, display browser chrome on your mock ups.”
Height matters! – Anders M. Andersen
Here’s an excellent list of things to keep in mind when designing for a small device. I’m beginning to see more and more folks talking about the height of a device, instead of just the width, which is a great trend. These tips should help most designs stay usable, even on very short screens.
Leaving Old Internet Explorer Behind
Using media queries to make a clean break from legacy browsers
“The “key ingredient” to our new design. The answer is simple: all design decisions have been dictated by our pursuit of optimal typographic measure (45–90 characters per line) for a convenient reading experience on every screen resolution. We’ve worked very hard to achieve optimal typography first and then built the layout around that. It was important for us to increase usability, visibility and accessibility for our content.”
Smashing Magazine on their new responsive design (via uxrave)
(Source: smashingmagazine.com, via uxrave)
Behavioral economics and Facebook conspiracy theories
Timeline also makes branded posts (ads) look nearly identical to the actual content we’re on Facebook to see, so it follows that they’d be processed similarly.
Super interesting piece by Jeff Dechambeau on the psychology behind the new Facebook Timeline and how it could play into a shift in perception of ads.
(h/t @eignerchris)
Jeff Gothelf – Understanding Lean UX
No one else in the process has to get it right the first time. Designers don’t have to get it right the first time.
Excellent 30 minute podcast discussing the agile UX process.
Google AdSense to launch adaptive ads
We’re making our text ads smarter and will soon display them differently so they perform optimally depending on where users are viewing them from: computers, tablets, or smartphones. The best part is that our ads do the right thing automatically - without any changes required to your web pages - by detecting what device your web page is being viewed from.
With this change, we’re taking advantage of the unique features of mobile devices to deliver more engaging, better-performing ads. Since the screens are smaller, we’re reducing the number of ads per ad slot and increasing the size of the text to make them more legible and noticeable.
(via decodering)
This is awesome and sad at the same time. I’ve gotten used to not have so many ads on my phone as a desktop web experience. On the plus side, it’s great to see such a large organization move towards adaptive design in such a large way.
I somehow missed this great presentation on the future-friendly web by Brad Frost earlier this year. Lots of great stuff in here!
