Media Queries are awesome. They really are. Being able to detect a users device width, height, and/or orientation and then being able to style the content they view accordingly is an invaluable tool in any web designers/developer's toolkit. They are paramount to the responsive design movement, and makes porting content from device to device without having to create multiple templates somewhat of a synch. And better still, every day, new possibilities/options are being added to them to make them more powerful. Read More »

So what do I mean when I say CSS generated content? Well, it’s somewhat complicated, so lemme try to break it down. CSS generated content is a technique that allows content (HTML and/or images) to be inserted into the DOM without actually being included in the HTML. Say what? A bit odd, but basically if you view the source of a page using this, you won't find the corresponding code in the HTML. It's being added in via CSS, and therefore is usually considered just for presentational purposes. Read More »

I've recently paid more attention to things that I try to imitate on the web, but use in every day life. The thing that I find the most irksome and concerning is the lack of visual and/or physical interaction with a lot of buttons. The web, especially of late, has done a great job to emphasize the importance of this for user experience, conversion rate, and just general sense of accomplishment. But the real world, unfortunately, didn't think that far ahead, or at least it didn't always think with their users in mind. Read More »

Retina displays are here. Or for those who don’t know what that is, high-resolution screens. And what we’ve been typically using as web designers and developers to serve content to normal screens just isn’t cutting it anymore. I won’t get into serving high-res photos today, as that’s been discussed at length by many other smart folk already. Read More »

CMS' have gotten sick. Sick from feature bloat and just general overload. Their main focus is not creating and managing content anymore; in fact this is almost a forgotten part of what they are meant to do. And I don't think it's anyones fault in particular: clients have needs and concerns that their CMS be able to do X, Y, and Z, and developers have needs to get paid. So it's understandable that feature creep just inevitably happens in a CMS and that focus gets lost easily. Read More »

This past SXSW was my first time attending (many props to @browsermedia& @kerrygunther); and I was super stoked to be able to go -- a vacation, a chance to learn new kick ass webness, awesome food, awesome music, and awesome people. For the most part, that's exactly what it was. Austin seems like a great town, filled to the brim with great taco joints and beer dispensaries (aka bars), so I was glad I finally got to experience that. I met some very cool people, heard some even cooler people speak, and tried to meet up (unsuccessfully) with seemingly the coolest people I follow on twitter. Plus, I heard a bunch of great bands, all for free. Overall, it was awesome, and I wish I'll be lucky enough to go again at some point. However, I had a few qualms with the conference itself. Read More »

Web fonts: what's the deal with them, and why should we care about the recent progress? Simple questions, with lengthy answers. Web fonts are, simply as they sound, typographic faces that have been designed specifically for use on the web, and in many different sizes, resolutions, and monitor types. Sounds pretty complicated right? Well it definitely is. And, that's the main reason (perhaps aside from copyright/monetary issues) that the web has been so hand-cuffed for so long in terms of what was available for users of the web. But, a few years ago, a [few] teams of typeophiles got together to try to change this stale state of affairs. Read More »

What's all the hubbub about mobile first mobileness?? While it is a hot new term, It's not just a hot new term. It's much, much more than that. It's a whole new way of thinking about users, content, web design, and the lot. Do a Google search for 'mobile first' and you'll find somewhere in the neighborhood of 4,520,000,000 results. That's a lot of results. Read More »