There’s been some talk here and there about whether or not it matters that many people tend to mean a lot more stuff than what is actually HTML5 when they say “HTML5”.

Despite being kind of nitpicky about terminology, I can buy bundling stuff like Geolocation, Web Storage, Web Workers, and Microdata with the actual HTML5 specification and calling it all “HTML5”.

But also bundling CSS3 (and even some parts of CSS 2.1) with HTML5? Nope. As Jeremy Keith puts it in Clarification:

Don’t get me wrong: I honestly don’t care that much about whether something like geolocation is technically part of HTML5 or not: that’s a fairly trifling matter. But CSS3? C’mon! In what universe is it in any way acceptable that a web developer wanting to learn about web fonts begins by Googling for HTML5?

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Posted in CSS, HTML 5.

“In this tutorial, I’ll show you how easy it is to transform a basic HTML table into a profesionnal looking chart using visualize.js, a very useful jQuery plugin.”

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This is a very cool extension for Firebug (add-on for an add-on?) that expands Firebug’s capabilities with jQuery. For instance, a built in jQueryify button, showing attached event handlers in the Content / DOM tree view, and highlighting all elements in a jQuery collection. I don’t think it’s new but I hadn’t seen it until I finally watched Remy Sharp’s debugging tools screencast from last month.

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“So what is minimalism in web design? Just as important, what is it not?”

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Here’s some food for thought.

When designing something that you are reasonably certain the user is willing (or forced) to invest time in learning to use proficiently, is it beneficial to intentionally make some tasks just slightly more difficult than they could be?

Not incredibly hard, not convoluted, not outright counter-intuitive. But perhaps making some information a little more buried, or placing an action in a slightly strange place. If the user is really looking, they’ll be able to find it.

Frustrating a user is never good, doubly so when you have competition a few clicks away. But forcing a user to do a little discovery and learn the specifics of this product/application/website might make them feel closer to it or more attached to it because they’ve already learned it.

I’m not advocating this, I’m just throwing it out there because I think it’s interesting. It’s certainly no excuse for bad design.

“In this article, I hope to provide a clear demarcation between what is perceived by most to be beautiful in Web design and what is truly beautiful, along with some guiding principles to help designers today create websites whose beauty is not superficial, but rather improves and enhances the user experience.”

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There are well-known proverbs that imply (or state outright) that beauty is superficial and limited in what it can accomplish. "It's what's inside that counts" and "Beauty is only skin deep" are a few simple examples. Because the Web design industry is now flooded with a lot of raw talent, and because virtually anyone can create a "beautiful" website, recognizing a truly beautiful website experience is becoming increasingly difficult. What appears beautiful to the eye might in fact be more of a hindrance.

In this article, I hope to provide a clear demarcation between what is perceived by most to be beautiful in Web design and what is truly beautiful, along with some guiding principles to help designers today create websites whose beauty is not superficial, but rather improves and enhances the user experience.

Mcdonalds really stepped up to the plate with their most recent website design.

It is modern, clean, and uses superb food photography extensively. By ditching the clutter and letting the food be the hero, they really highlight their products well.

This design was featured on the 23rd August 2010 . It falls under the category of Food and Drink, and has a layout style of Three Column.

If you'd like, you can visit this site, or view all our other featured designs.

Busy textured design is not easy to pull off but this designer did a great job.

I love the combination of the bright colors with the grunge textures.

This design was featured on the 23rd August 2010 . It falls under the category of Community, and has a layout style of Three Column.

If you'd like, you can visit this site, or view all our other featured designs.

“To help set you on your path to Illustrator mastery, here are some great beginner-level Illustratortutorials that cover the fundamental tools and techniques.”

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“This roundup includes 21 Photoshop tutorials which deal with creating web layouts, fresh and inspirational resources from design community (July 2010).”

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The latest poll was all about picking the best sentence to a user to perform a specific action on a website. The choices are listed below, sorted from most popular to least:

• 39% – Select a user and then click the Update button.
• 37% – Select a user and then click Update.
• 8% – Select a user and Update.
• 7% – Select a user and then press the Update button.
• 5% – Select a user and then press Update.
• 3% – Select a user and then choose Update.
• 1% – Select a user and then choose the Update button.

Clearly, the action verb of “click” is the most popular. I don’t think that’s much of a surprise as that verb has been around and working for us for a long time. In the opening article, I suggested that “click” might be misleading since links and buttons can be used without having to use a mouse. Several people chimed in that, while that is true, those people still know what “click” means and can apply it to themselves. “Choose” was an device-agnostic alternative, but the least popular in this poll. “Press” only slightly more popular alternative. Surprisingly, the third most popular was to use the action verb from the button itself (since “Update” is already a verb).

New poll soon.

More discussion on experimenting with CSS in non-traditional contexts.

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A nice use of photography to add color and depth to a design.

I love the use of bold colors, typography and graphical elements that really bring a unique quality to this design.

This design was featured on the 22nd August 2010 . It falls under the category of Food and Drink, and has a layout style of Other.

If you'd like, you can visit this site, or view all our other featured designs.

A beautiful site with a well-executed space theme, large attractive graphics and photos, and attractive typography.

From top to bottom this is just a great looking site that perfectly nails the aesthetic for the target market.

This design was featured on the 22nd August 2010 . It falls under the category of Music, and has a layout style of Three Column.

If you'd like, you can visit this site, or view all our other featured designs.

Mike Harding with a desperately needed fix for when backgrounds “leak” out of elements with borders and border-radius.

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“Today I’m sharing 40 leftover textures I’ve accumulated over the last few months. Consider it a sampler pack of textures. Or, if you’re in the need of some design inspiration just open up the folder and start playing around.”

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“This icon pack comes with 108 gray icons, but feel free to customize the color. In Photoshop, use layer styles and apply Color Overlay to customize.”

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“Works in IE 6+ and all versions of Safari/Firefox/Opera. Includes CSS3 enhancements. As usual, the theme is absolutely free to use in private and commerical projects.”

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