Working for a digital agency as a developer is great, it really is. I do miss stretching my design muscles though, and I do want to get to grips with javascript better, so I’ve set myself the task of creating a new portfolio website. What I want most of all is for all of the information I want to display to be immediate, but I want to try and present it will enough to not need the feeling of ‘web pages’ and navigation. After all, all that a porfolio site should have is your work, a bit of information about yourself (including any twitter/whatever feeds that are relevant) and a link to your CV. Everything needs to feel categorised and exactly in it’s right place… I’m tempted to use Drupal, which is my current favourite toy, but I don’t need anything especially complicated and I’ve got enough Drupal projects going on at work…
Well with any luck now I’ve made a blog post about it I’ll start setting myself real deadlines and get this show on the road!
February 21st, 2010
1. Drupal is using jquery.
2.
sfHover = function() {
$(".primary-links li").mouseover(function() {
$(this).toggleClass("sfhover");
});
$(".primary-links li").mouseout(function() {
$(this).toggleClass("sfhover");
});
}
$(document).ready(sfHover);
In the header of page.tpl.php is all you need. You have to change $(”.primary-links li”) to whatever your navigation links are though (in this case class primary-links li items).
June 2nd, 2009
I know people are all about numbered lists with bite sized information chunks now, but I don’t seem to be able to order my thoughts enough to do it, but here is a quick summary:
Whereas previously the weather was viewable the instant you got to the page, you now have to search and then scroll down on a laptop or smaller screen to be able to see what the weather predictions are.
Ok, now why :
1. Over complicated with less crucial information and more useless information. Also, the layout just sucks. What were they thinking!
I don’t want to have to scan the page to work out what I’m trying to do, and the fact that they’ve had to put instructions right in the front goes to show exactly how bad the design is. Good design, the kind you would expect from a corp like the BBC guides you with visual cues rather than with a list of points on how to use the site. I don’t care that they’ve got a ‘don’t show me this again’ tickbox - this isn’t the kind of site you go to to interact with, this is the kind of site you go to to find out whether you need a bloody umbrella today. This is the kind of website I check on friends computers before going out, that I check on peoples phones or at an internet cafe or on wifi or whatever, I don’t want to be prompted each time.
I don’t care about forecast maps and videos or related links but they seem to be taking up an awful lot of page space. I care about the five day forecast (which is now a four day forecast) and the 24 hour forecast (which is also just four icons). Was the issue that it wasn’t very accurate or something? It was too difficult to try and predict something in that much detail? Can’t be because they have the maps showing forecast times in a much more fine-grained slider.
Why is the ‘recently viewed’ thing hidden so far down?
Why are the weather icons on the 4 day forecast and the 24 hour forecast highlighted every other time in pink? It suggests that there’s something significant about those days, why didn’t they just use a plain divider if they wanted extra visual separation?
Why is the navigation on the left hand side when it means it sacrifices so much more page space? I really liked the system they had before, they could have just expanded that by adding extra tabs for the forecast maps (which i guess are pretty useful) and whatever all the rest of the junk on the page is that’s cluttering it up and making it look so verbose.
Why haven’t they given more prominence to the search box? If they’re making people search for the weather now instead of just displaying it like they used to they might as well at least make it easy to spot and use, like google did or any other site where the first thing you do when you get to the page is to search. Admittedly the convenience of having London’s weather on the main page might only apply to people who live in London, leaving the others had to search for it anyway, but it makes sense to have the capital city the default thing to show, rather than sweet fa).
It’s perfectly possible to have a site with loads of cool useful techy content and make it easy to use and visually clear. Why haven’t they done it, why!?
2. Sucky icon design
The other icons might have been a tad ugly, but there was no mistaking at a glance that they meant cloudy or rainy or whatever. For me and for a lot of others this site is not about visual aesthetics but about utilitarianism.
Anyway in conclusion I’m really annoyed about the whole thing and I don’t understand why most people seem to like it. If you’ve found my ranty post with it’s poorly set out points and you disagree, please get in touch and let me know why I’m wrong.
February 28th, 2009
My hosting - apis networks - has upgraded mysql and a bug means that all of my posts are brought up in back to front date order! Joy! I dread upgrading to the new wordpress which I think fixes it because of the amount of pain and hunting I went through trying to get Zenphoto working. Maybe after the dissertation is handed in…
February 23rd, 2008
500 years of female portraits in the west
Absolutely beautiful and fascinating and incredibly memorising. There’s something so intimate about the way their eyes move and catch the viewer’s gaze. Reading the youtube comments was slightly depressing ( this xkcd comic captures it perfectly) but hey that’s the internet for you. Full of awesome stuff, but also full of depressingly unsophisticated ingenues who do things like leap onto the “OMG THIS PROVES MODERN ART IS BS” bandwagon.
June 12th, 2007
Quick note to say :
I am SO incredibly impressed by Google map’s new street view. The interface is beautiful, the concept is wonderful and of course (because google sure know how to design) it is wonderfully executed. Far more impressed with that than Microsoft Surface, which looks vaguely and unsettlingly familiar.
May 30th, 2007
Digg: Would you like to read this article on Kevin Rose?
Rukaya: No, I’m good. Unless it contains pictures of him in a state of deshabille of course.
Digg: How about the top 8 reasons girls love geeks?
Rukaya: Ummm, No, I don’t thi-
Digg: Or 25 CSS tips every web designer should use?
Rukaya: Well, I -
Digg [with increasing desperation]: Ok ok, how about some random article involving sex in some way?
Rukaya: Actually, I’ve kinda gotta head off no-
Digg [frantically]: The top 10 reasons Steve Jobs plays on his nintendo while using these 5 design hints on his website which is hosted using these tips which come in some arbitrary bite sized chunks because my readers have the attention span of a very bored gnat?
Rukaya: No! Geez, Digg, you’re kinda boring aren’t you?
Digg: Aha! I just know you’ll be interested in these MOST AMAZING photos which incidentally have been around from the dawn of the internet and aren’t really all that great!
Rukaya [loudly] : NO! God!
Digg [ignoring her and reading from a list]: Ok, the top 10 causes of most of the headaches in America: #1 reading the crap on dig-
Rukaya [with a look of disbelief]: I’m leaving now.
March 15th, 2007
this+is+sillyBETA.png )