Blog

October 20th, 2011

Technical

Broadband! Optical fiber! 4g! These are the keywords of today’s connectivity. But what do they really mean? They mean that we can now send more media-rich content to users. But…should we? Well, if it serves the most relevant content to the user and creates a good user experience, sure. But we need to remember that one of the basics of good usability is site performance. And with so many users now streaming video, music and other large amounts of data, we’re finding the Internet can often be pretty strained.

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Don Ruzek

June 1st, 2011

Application Development, Interaction Design, Technical, Technology, UI Design, User Experience Design, Visual Design, Web Development

Where is the web going? If I told you I knew, I’d be lying. The web changes so fast, it’s hard to predict where or even what it will be a few years from now. Which is great. The web should be an ever changing ocean of ideas and innovation. Sometimes as developers, we tend to complain about old browsers or people without JavaScript, and forget to think about how far we’ve come.  So, with that in mind,  I thought I’d take a moment to go over some of the really cool stuff we’ll be seeing a lot more of on the web in the coming months and years.

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Matt Heiner

May 23rd, 2011

Internet Strategy, Technology

Our Mobile Practice Director Doug Brashear sat down with Federal Tech Talk the other week to discuss the evolving federal mobile landscape.  Given that the Obama administration wants every agency to connect with citizens, there’s mounting pressure to push mobile apps and optimized sites live. But to what end?  Doug addresses how federal IT professionals can design sites that consider those accessing information from their smartphones and what content is best suited for this medium.

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Hayley Wilson

May 10th, 2011

Technology, Visual Design, Web Development

As developers, we generally understand the benefits of using a CSS framework alongside a modular site design. Since we are not the ones who actually design the site, though, it is important that we collaborate with designers (and other developers) when creating and implementing complex, modern sites. There are many benefits to using a CSS framework – cross-browser consistency (XBC) being one of the huge ones, off the cuff - and once you begin using one (whether as a designer or developer), you will likely never go back. Need more convincing?  Here’s what else CSS frameworks allow for:

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Matt Heiner

April 7th, 2011

Information Architecture, Internet Strategy, Technology, Web Content Management

Google’s increasing emphasis this year on its “Rich Snippets” program (an observation obtained directly from one of their Client Account Managers) should encourage businesses, and especially local vendors and eCommerce merchants, to start using additional “semantic markup” for their HTML. “Semantic markup” is additional tagging (or labels) using structured data that are added to help parsers and programs that read your webpage to understand truly what specific content areas or fragments are about. Google currently supports labels about reviews, people profiles, products, business listings, recipes, and events. The labels are invisible to users, but not to search engines.

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Ted McLaughlan

January 18th, 2011

Information Architecture, Internet Strategy, Technology, User Experience Design, Web Development

As developers, we strive to provide the best user experience on the web, priding ourselves on seamlessly enhancing or degrading the user’s experience depending on the capabilities of the user’s browser. But at what point do we stop catering to the few, so we can deliver a much richer experience to the many?

Many freelancers are openly refusing to develop for IE6, not because they can’t, but because of the fact that it hinders the innovation they would like to see throughout the web, in web applications, and on intranet portals and websites. With so many companies beginning to open up their sites to HTML5 and CSS3, it isn’t enough anymore to be cross-browser compliant. Web Applications and websites need to be highly interactive for users to truly obtain an experience that will stand out in their mind. Developers and organizations need to think about the web in a new way.  No longer is it a place where everyone is entitled to the same experience, but it is a place where those with the right capabilities can have a truly amazing experience. (more…)

Matt Heiner

January 7th, 2011

Application Development, Web Content Management, Web Development

Several weeks ago, Google released the Google Chrome Store, and the industry at large scratched its head trying to figure out what the implications of the store would really be.  Users have been exploring what’s popular and trying to determine the actual “apps” versus bookmarks to web-based tools they can use in any browser, and so on.

Is this Google’s crushing blow? Is this, along with the Android Market and the coming Chrome OS, Google’s big stand against Microsoft and Apple?

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Rob Cherny

September 13th, 2010

Technology, Web Development

There are some odd stories surfacing about the potential future (or lack of future) of Silverlight and WPF with Microsoft. Essentially the implication (and keep in mind these are rumors, that’s all) is that the IE9 team and some others feel that HTML5 may have a bigger future than Silverlight and WPF. (more…)

Rob Cherny

September 3rd, 2010

Technology

Rock band Arcade Fire has teamed up with Google to redefine the music video and to show the world what is possible with HTML5.

“The Wilderness Downtown” combines HTML5, JavaScript, and Google Maps to create an immersive Web experience that is truly unique for every user.   The music is great, and the video is a joy to watch.  But as a Web geek, I’m most impressed by the subtle synchronization of lyrical and musical cues, window effects, and animations that are made possible by the HTML5 audio, video, and canvas tags.

To watch this video, you’ll need Google Chrome or another HTML5 compliant browser.

Don Bruns

August 30th, 2010

Application Development, Web Development

One of the great new features in HTML5 (or whatever you want to call it) is the new model for local storage of data in the browser. Some call it DOM Storage, but essentially it’s an API that allows Web authors to store larger sets of data in the browser than old school traditional methods such as cookies allow. How does it work, and what can you do with it? (more…)

Rob Cherny

June 25th, 2010

Technology, Web Development

So one of the latest and greatest buzzwords in Web Development Land is “HTML5″ and some folks may be wondering exactly what the deal is. Long story short, it’s a work in progress, it’s being created in the open, and it’s features are being tested by browser vendors already. Mozilla, Apple, Google, Opera, and Microsoft all have their efforts going at the same time, some of them with overlap, some of them without. Finally, there are features which can be reliably used today. There’s plenty of information out there if you’re looking. (more…)

Rob Cherny

April 15th, 2010

Web Development

By now news has spread around the Web that Microsoft announced the Platform Preview of IE9 at MIX10. Our own John Sutton was there and touched on it in our blog here. Reactions around the Web have generally been positive, but there’s been some criticism about the marketing machine, their test results, the features they’re touting, the platform restrictions, and even the fake browser UI that’s been slapped on the thing.

It’s important to realize if you evaluate it that it’s just an early preview and the user interface is, generally speaking, not even there! (more…)

Rob Cherny

March 18th, 2010

Information Architecture, Interaction Design, Technology, User Experience Design, Web Development

Day two at MIX10 and the information overload continues:

Keynote Highlights:

IE9 and HTML 5

IE9 has true support for HTML 5 including HTML 5 video. Reduced processing capacity required for JavaScript and HTML 5 video. The demo provided was truly amazing. The demo ran on Windows 7. This made me wonder what the performance would be like on older versions of Windows as well as other OS platforms. (more…)

John Sutton