Archives for 2009

Designing Web Navigation

June 30, 2009 by Roy Johnson

optimising the user experience

Anyone who has ever designed a web site will know that navigation of its contents is a key issue in the site’s usability. Visitors must be able to find their way around – otherwise they’ll leave, and they won’t come back again. Successful navigation systems require good screen design, well thought out information architecture, clear labelling, logical hierarchies, and effective linking. This book deals with all these issues of designing web navigation in an extremely thorough manner.

Every aspect of navigational design is examined in close detail – through both theoretical models and technical research, and a practical examination of a wide variety of large scale web sites from around the world. It’s a beautifully presented book, with elegantly designed pages, full colour illustrations, and scholarly yet unobtrusive footnotes leading to web references and recommendations for further reading.

The chapters are almost exhaustively thorough. On navigation mechanisms for instance, he covers every possibility – from tabs to breadcrumb trails, and from dropdown menus to sitemaps, tag clouds, A to Z indexes, and star trees. You couldn’t wish for anything more comprehensive. He discusses the advantages and the potential disadvantages of each system, showing examples of where they are used to good effect.

Although it is primarily concerned with the delivery of content over the Web and read in browsers on a computer, he also discusses the navigational consequences of content delivery via mobile phones, personal digital assistants (PDAs) and even car navigation systems.

On the issue of designing a navigation system he has a very sound piece of advice. “Don’t start by designing the navigation on the home page.” This might seem counter-intuitive, because for most designers the home page is the focus of their attention, and it’s the root, the index page of the entire site. But it’s not the most important page for visitors. Most of them will enter via a page deep within the site to which they have been referred by a link from a search engine.

Although there’s quite a lot on extensive usability testing, in general he strikes a reasonable balance between writing for professional designers of large scale corporate and ecommerce sites, and smaller sites which might be the work of an individual entrepreneur. There are certainly plenty of tips on the presentation of text on a page for instance which could help improve the work of an enthusiastic amateur.

He ends by discussing the relationship between navigation and searching, social tagging systems, and rich web applications. These latter post a new challenge to designers, because web pages are no longer static entities which appear in the order they are summoned via mouse clicks. Rich web applications can compose the content of a web page dynamically. Once the user has chosen a new set of data on screen, there is nowhere to go back to. The page URL remains the same, even though what is being displayed has changed. Fortunately, he provides ample guidance to designers on how to cope with such new problems.

I think this is a book which aspires to position itself alongside Louis Rosenfeld and Peter Morville’s Information Architecture for the World Wide Web and Jakob Nielsen’s Homepage Usability as modern classics of web design principles.

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James Kalbach, Designing Web Navigation, Sebastopol (CA): O’Reilly, 2007, pp.394, ISBN: 0596528108

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Designing Web Usability

July 12, 2009 by Roy Johnson

provocative and radical examination of good web design

Jakob Nielsen is the number one guru of ‘Web usability’ – mainly because he invented the term. What this expression means in a general sense is the degree to which web sites have been designed with the needs of users in mind – as distinct from those of the designer or the site owner. Nielsen is former distinguished engineer at Sun Microsystems, and he has been writing on hypertext, navigation, and Internet engineering for the last decade. Designing Web Usability is part one of a two-volume major statement of his theories on web design.

He expresses his views in a blunt and uncompromising manner. This is a bracing, indeed challenging book to read – but it is packed with reflections, principles, tips, and design theory on just about every possible aspect of web site design. He backs up his theory with the results of ‘usability testing’ and plenty of well illustrated, closely analysed real life examples, in many of which major companies have their sites held up for rigorous criticism.

His main priority is the creation of fast downloading pages (‘speed must be the overriding design criterion’) on the basis that people simply will not wait. Ten seconds is the average maximum, it would seem. To this end page size should be kept below 35K, and he’s severely critical of big graphics. (‘Remove graphic; increase traffic. It’s that simple’.) Similarly, he’s quite firm on the question of using frames: ‘Just say No’.

There are good arguments to back up all these assertions – but also occasional puzzles. He seems to take a radical and scientific line when he argues that a page is inefficient because only sixty percent of the screen is devoted to product and navigation. But then in the next breath he admits that good design might include ‘white space’ – that is, unused screen real estate. There is no explanation of where one consideration ends and the other begins. He also makes the radical claim that HTML Standard 1.0 should be the web author’s common denominator, but he is quite happy to discuss Cascading Style Sheets [supported only by version 4.0 browsers and above]. But these are minor problems: most of the time I was swept along by his infectious sense of intellectual exhilaration.

He argues for well-annotated outbound links, on the basis that each pointer towards useful information adds quality to your site. There are also interesting tips on links, such as not trying to link everybody to your home page. There’s a strong temptation to do this – because you would naturally prefer every visitor to explore your site in full. But there is no reason why they should tolerate searching your site when they have been referred on the promise of something specific.

On writing for the web he favours brevity, content chunking [short paragraphs] and accuracy – on the basis that Content is King. As he puts it in his idiosyncratic prose style, we should ‘write for scannability’. For someone whose message is to design for maximum usability, his language is occasionally a little opaque. He uses terms such as ‘instantiated’, ‘best-fit regression line’, ‘optimal user experience’ and ‘hedonic wage model’. But once again, this quirkiness is vastly outweighed by the density of good advice packed into every page.

Advanced web site designers will be interested in what he has to say about the use of audio, video, animation, and even 3D effects – yet he also has insightful things to say about some of the smallest and apparently mundane elements of a web page. It’s amazing what subtle nuances he wrings from his meditation on the choice of words for a page title for instance – something I imagine most people hardly give a second thought.

Beginners will appreciate his advice on matters such as creating good domain names for new businesses, whilst advanced users are catered for in sections which discuss the integration of your site with a search engine and the techniques for creating dynamic pages which change their content in response to customer demand.

He is unremittingly on the side of the user rather than the site owner or designer. In this sense he’s the very opposite of design and graphics guru David Siegel – arguing extreme functionality over aesthetic form.

We still need more sites to base their information architecture on the customer’s needs instead of the company’s own internal thinking.

On large scale sites, he has some interesting points to make regarding the distinctions between intranets and extranets, and he deals comprehensively with issues of designing for international audiences, for users with disabilities, and for Web TV. He ends with some predictions on likely trends over the next few years, reminding us that despite any increases in audience and bandwidth, the vast majority will be low-end users for whom the prime concern is download time.

There have recently been criticisms in some design circles that Jakob Nielsen is too dogmatic and that his theories are based on the commercial demands of the Internet. Some of this may well be true, but anybody who has the slightest interest in web pages, site design, and information architecture should read this book. I feel quite confident that it is destined to become a classic, and personally, I look forward to the next volume, which is going to tell us ‘How To Do It’. He’s even got a provisional title – Ensuring Web Usability – and lists it for us in his section of recommended reading.

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Jakob Nielsen, Designing Web Usability: The Practice of Simplicity, Indianapolis, Ind: New Riders, 2000, pp.420, ISBN: 156205810X

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Designing Web-Based Training

June 27, 2009 by Roy Johnson

web-based course construction – from start to finish

This is a well-illustrated guide to every phase of designing, setting-up, and managing a Web-based training site. It goes from graphics and content design, to finding students and assessing their needs; from hardware and software options, to usability testing. William Horton explains what Web Based Training (WBT) can do and how to get the best results from exploiting its technologies. And for ‘training’ you can also read ‘education’ – because as he argues, the distinction between the two is often negligible. His approach is practical and clear; the book is written in a no-nonsense manner; and he follows his own prescriptions by giving examples to illustrate every point he makes.

The design of the book itself more or less imitates Web pages: there are lots of headings, subheadings, quick paragraphs, tabled checklists, call-out boxes, horizontal rules, screenshots, and bulleted lists. He is essentially gung-ho for WBT as a novel learning technology – but he does look at a lot of research evidence, both pro and contra. He discusses the tricky issues of how to put a cost on course construction, how to devise navigational metaphors, and how to deal with potential plagiarism.

He offers several explanations of how to organise the sequence of learning events (or ‘objects’) in a course of learning. Then he even demonstrates the design of an entire course in outline, with templates of all the important pages and the structure in which they are arranged. This is valuable material for anyone who might be coming to the writing of online learning materials for the first time.

He covers an amazing variety of approaches to teaching – including the use of Webcasts, presentations, guided research, case studies, and learning games. There are some particularly good examples of virtual laboratories for teaching mechanical engineering and HTML coding. Most importantly perhaps, he shows which approaches are best used for which type of problem or task.

There’s a good section on tests and exercises, including advice on setting true/false and multiple-choice questions, and when it’s best to use matching pair and drag and drop questions. A section on teaching by email and discussion groups contains all the usual advice about Netiquette which many people still ignore.

The book is aimed at professional designers, trainers, and teachers – but it’s written in a way which will make it useful at any level. I bought my copy to solve some design problems for one group of students – which it has done in no time at all. Now my business partner has grabbed it to do the same for another group.

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William K. Horton, Designing Web-Based Training : How to Teach Anyone Anything Anywhere Anytime, John Wiley & Sons, 2000, pp.640, ISBN: 047135614X

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Designing with Web Standards

July 25, 2009 by Roy Johnson

XHTML + style sheets = creating ‘timeless code’

Jeffrey Zeldman is an evangelist for designing with web standards and browser compatibility. He suggests that we should embrace the latest technologies to design pages that everyone can view. And he shows how it can be done. The standards in this case are methods of what he calls ‘creating timeless code’. What he means by this is using HTML, XHTML, and style sheets to create pages which can be viewed in almost all current browsers. There are two possibilities – both of which combine XHTML and style sheets.

The first is ‘transitional’ and allows light use of tables for positioning page elements. The second is ‘strict’ and requires you to use CSS for all matters of appearance. There’s a lot about browser development and why Netscape and Internet Explorer from versions 1.0 to 6.0 caused the problems for which Web standards are a solution. Then he launches into an enthusiastic account of how XML will be the technology to finally end the browser wars.

After the theory and argument, the second part of the book shows you how to work in XHTML. This will be relatively easy for anyone used to dealing with HTML. The harder part is controlling the layout and appearance of pages using style sheets.

Zeldman adopts a realistic and tolerant line, knowing that most designers will take the transitional route from HTML to XHTML. He designs a sample site using a combination of XHTML, tables, and style sheets, showing how they can be combined and yet still pass the requirements of W3C validation.

His mission all the while is to reduce the amount of code required to render a page, to eliminate ‘bloat’, and make pages available in all browsers. The secret here seems to be that pages can’t be made to look the same, but they can be made to look acceptable.

As a website designer, I would much rather have my users say my web pages ‘look funny’ rather than saying they ‘don’t work’.

He explains style sheets in a simple and clear manner, then shows them in use as he designs an attractive-looking web site one step at a time.

En passant, he reveals an amazingly clever trick for dealing with older browsers which don’t fully support style sheets. It’s to create a second, simpler set of styles, and force old browsers to use them, leaving more recent browsers to pick up the first more sophisticated set.

He also has lots of useful advice about dealing with multiple browser support, though by the time he has explained all the potential difficulties, you begin to wonder how any web page ever gets published at all.

The latter part of the book deals with accessibility issues, and he ends by showing how the interface of his personal site at zeldman.com was re-designed using style sheets. All the code and the style sheets are available as free downloads at his site.

I was surprised that there was no bibliography, and I think the publishers should have treated him to full colour reproduction. This is intermediate to advanced level guidance, but Zeldman does everything he can to make it entertaining and accessible.

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Jeffrey Zeldman, Designing with Web Standards, Indianapolis:IN, New Riders, 2003, pp.435, ISBN: 0735712018

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Desktop publishing terms – a glossary

September 15, 2009 by Roy Johnson

the language of word-processing and DTP

Desktop publishing terms

Attributes
Attributes are the stylistic properties of an object. Attributes of text include size, case, boldness. Attributes of graphics include line thickness, fill colour and line colour. A set of attributes applied to an object is called a style.

Backup
A duplicate of electronic files (programs. data or operating systems). It is available in place of the original in case of corruption/loss/availability problems. A wise person creates backups frequently.

Base line
The imaginary line that characters rest on in a line of text (see also line spacing).

Bit Map Image
A dot matrix image where each dot is represented by one bit in the digital memory. Complex images are built up using these dots. Resolution of about 300 dots per inch may require approximately I Mbyte for a complete A4 page.

Body text
The main text in a document, in distinction from headlines and captions.

Bold
In printing, a heavier version of a particular typeface. An enhancement of the text.

Bubble jet printer
Generically applied brand name for an Ink Jet Printer.

Bullet
In printing, a graphic symbol usually in the form of a large dot marking the commencement of a new paragraph. Used to attract the reader’s attention.

Byte
A byte is 8 bits. The storage capacity of computers (ROM and RAM) and disks is generally given in kilobytes, (1024 bytes), megabytes or gigabytes. Approximately one byte is required to store one character.

Caption
Text placed under an illustration to describe it.

CD-ROM
A way of distributing programs and data on a disk very like an audio CD which allows large amounts of storage and is very portable. ROM indicates data can be copied from the CD but that the contents cannot be changed or deleted. In DTP this media is particularly useful for Font and Clip-Art libraries.

Central Processing Unit [CPU]
This term is used variously to describe the base unit of the computer system or the main chip within it.

Character
A symbol used in a writing system. In most western languages the letters A to Z, a to z, 0 to 9 and punctuation characters such as : ; , ? etc.

Clip-Art
Pictures of general use which are provided in a library for easy inclusion in publications. Clip art libraries are usually provided without copyright restrictions.

Clipboard
A temporary storage area in computer memory to which objects are cut or copied and from which they can be posted directly into a position into a page or a DTP work area. The clipboard holds one object at a time.

Copy
(1) To reproduce an object by placing it into the clipboard then pasting it elsewhere in the same publication or into a document belonging to another program.
(2) To reproduce a file by renaming it or placing it on another drive or directory. Often done as a form of data security. [See Backup.]

Copyright
The exclusive rights to, and control of, the reproduction, sales, copying or distribution of creative works of art. music, literature or coded programs for computing.

Corruption
The inadvertent destruction of electronic data which causes data received or read to differ from that transmitted or originally recorded.

Crop
To cut the edges of an illustration to fit in a given space or to show a particular detail.

Cut
In electronic text or graphic production, the transfer of objects from one file to a temporary storage area in memory called the clipboard from where they can be pasted into a different page, file or into the DTP work area.

Default
An option that is used automatically unless an alternative is specified. For example a default font of Times New Roman 12 is very common.

Directory (or Folder)
A software division of a disk, usually used to keep similar files together, rather in the manner of a drawer in a filing cabinet. A disk may contain many directories. A directory often contains several other directories called sub-directories.

Digital camera
A camera which stores images as digital information rather than on photographic film. This allows images to be easily displayed and edited on computer.

Disk
In computing, a thin disk coated with magnet material, on which information can be recorded. Sometimes spelled disc.

Dot matrix
Usually applied to printer and screen output devices which make up character/images from a matrix of dots. Quality depends on dot density and size. (See also resolution). Historically a type of printer that used inky ribbons and mechanical contact.

Draft
(1) A rough layout of a page, document or publication.
(2) Used to describe print quality – particularly with respect to dot matrix printers, where draft quality is synonymous with poor quality but high speed output.

EPS
Encapsulated postscript, a very versatile file format used for sending files to commercial printers, and thus avoiding the cost of typesetting. [See postscript.]

File
An organised and structured collection of information. In computing it is the basic unit of stored or accessible user data held in auxiliary storage. Programs as well as data are held in file format.

File names
The names used by the Operating system to identify files. Two files cannot have the same name and occupy the same storage location on a disk.

File type (or extension)
The part of the filename which indicates which program created it, and therefore which system it is written in. This is essential information in DTP which is very concerned with file transfer. Typical file types are DOC (for a word processor document) and BMP (for Bitmap image). Some Operating Systems do not always display file types, but will have the facility to do so.

Floppy disk
A thin portable plastic disk usually 3.5″ in diameter on which electronic files can be recorded. Typically holds over I Megabyte of data.

Folder
See Directory.

Font
A complete collection of letters, punctuation marks, numbers, and special characters with a consistent and identical typeface, weight (Roman or bold), posture (upright or italic) and font size.

Technically, font still refers to one complete set of characters in a given typeface, weight, and size, such as Helvetica italic 12 – but the terms has come to be used interchangably for refering to typefaces or font families.

Footer
Information that appears at the bottom of every page (within the normal bottom margin) of a document – for instance, page number. (See also Header)

Format
(1) The system used for storing a file on disk. Different programs use different methods of recording identical information.
(2) The layout and arrangement of tracks and sectors on a disk.
(3) Sometimes also applied to the layout or arrangement of graphics and/or text on a page or screen.

Gigabyte
About a thousand megabytes.

Global
Relating to anything in computing that extends over the whole system. For example, a ‘global search and replace’ means that any occurrence of a specified word will be found, and replaced by another specified word.

Graphic
In computing, the presentation of information which is not in character form. Picture information as distinct from textual. Some characters may be constructed in graphic form, these are considered to be graphics.

Greeking
The use of dummy text that looks like Greek script and is used to give an impression of the appearance of the finished document. This is used to make it easy to judge the overall appearance of a document without being distracted by the meaning of the text.

Guide (in DTP)
A non-printing line used to aid the positioning of text or graphics.

Gutter
The space between columns of text on a page.

Hard disk
An auxiliary storage device able to store very large quantities of data that is usually mounted inside the System unit. Typically holds greater than I Gigabyte of data.

Header
Information that appears at the top of every page (within the normal top margin) of a document – for instance, the title of a report, or page number. (See also Footer)

Import
Bring an object (graphic or text) into a DTP page.

Indent
The position of text in from the margin.

Ink jet printer
A non-impact printer which prints by spraying a finely controlled jet of ink from a nozzle onto paper. The electrically charged ink droplets are moved by electrical fields to form the characters in dot matrix form.

Input device
A unit of hardware from which the computer reads data.

Inter-line spacing
Space between lines in a paragraph. (See also leading.)

Internet
A system of connecting computers together via telephone lines managed by network management computers. Enables transmission of data around the globe, and is a rich source of graphic material.

Intranet
A communicating system of computers that is theoretically confined to one place – in an organisation, or even a single office.

Italic
A typeface variation in which letters slope forward.

Justification
To format text so that lines are of equal length producing vertical columns of space at the left and right margins. Spaces between words are enlarged so that text characters always touch both left and right margins.

Kerning
The space between characters. Now used to define proportional spacing between characters which is dependent upon the character width.

Landscape
Describes the paper orientation – in this case the width is greater than the height and so often referred to as wide. (See Portrait.)

Laser printer
A non-impact printer which uses a laser beam and toner applied to paper to produce fast, quiet, high density (typically 75 to 1600 dpi or greater) dot matrix images.

Leading
The distance in points between lines of text – pronounced as in ‘ledd-ing’ (see also Inter-line spacing.)

Line spacing
(See Inter-line spacing.)

Logo
A visual image used as a company trade mark or instead of the company name.

Lowercase
The set of 26 characters ‘a’ to ‘z’. Not capital (uppercase) characters.

Master page
A page which contains objects (such as headers, page numbers or borders) which will be reproduced on every other page of a document.

Megabyte
About a thousand kilobytes (actually, 1,048,576 bytes)

Network
Computers connected together for the purpose of sharing resources and communication.

Non proportional spacing
Fonts in which letter spacing which does not vary for different width of character. Rarely used except in tables and text processing assessments where it gives the appearance of work produced on a manual typewriter.

Object
A graphic or piece of text treated as a single item. Word processing treats text as a set of characters. DTP usually treats text as an object.

OCR (Optical Character Recognition)
Software which converts pictures of, printed text (acquired by a scanner) into an text file for further editing or formatting.

Operating system (OS)
Programs which run the computer, and without which the computer would not work. The OS allows the programs we use to run. The various Windows, Mac System7 and its successors and the various OS2 products may all be considered operating systems.

Orphan
The first line of a paragraph appearing by itself at the bottom of a page as the last line of the page.

Output device
A device to which the computer writes data. Often converts the data into a human readable form. A printer is an output device.

Pagination
The process of defining where page breaks will occur. Involves setting page length, size or number of lines and, where required, the setting of page numbering.

Paragraph
A piece of text terminated by a hard return. Thus a title or a heading can be a paragraph.

Paste
A command which transfers an object from the clipboard into the DTP work area.

Pitch
The measure of horizontal character spacing. Now very rarely used outside of typing classes the word is a contraction of ‘per inch’ and assumes every character, be it a W or an 1. is of the same width.

Pixel
The smallest addressable point on a VDU. One pixel is one of the dots forming the dot matrix on the screen of a VDU. The commonest monitors use a 640 by 480 pixel grid.

Plotter
A mechanical device which produces printout using vector or co-ordinate graphics often by using a pen moved about on rails.

Point size
A measurement of the size of type; one point is equal to one-seventy-second of an inch. On systems that use millimetres 3 points to one rnillimetre is a useful approximation.

Portrait
A piece of paper, an image or page which is turned so that the height is greater than the width. Often simply called tall.

Postscript
A print description language used as a way of communicating with printers that is not dependent on program, operating system or model of computer. Desk Top Publishing can produce EPS (encapsulated postscript) files on disks which can then be sent to high volume print companies, thereby saving the expense of typesetting and allowing the small system user access to professional quality publication.

Property
The stylistic features of an object. (See also Attribute.)

Proof reading
Checking text in detail for errors.

Proportional spacing
Characters are allocated horizontal spacing in proportion to their size, thus an ‘m’ would have more space than an ‘i’. Most fonts are of this type. (See also non-proportional spacing.)

Publication
The product of a DTP program. That is, a completed work for sale or distribution. Also applied to a work in progress.

Overzoom
A zoom setting of greater than 100%. Used for accurate placement of objects and working with small details.

RAM (Random Access Memory.)
The part of a computer’s memory in which information is stored. RAM is volatile; its contents are lost when power is removed.

Resolution
The amount of detail visible in any display or copy. Most computer system output devices produce images from a matrix of small dots. Resolution then depends on the size and number of dots per unit length or area.

ROM (Read Only Memory)
Memory which can be read repeatedly, but cannot be changed. ROM is non-volatile, its contents are retained when power is switched off. (See CD-ROM)

Rulers
Guides on screen display to enable accurate measurements.

Sans serif
Characters which do not have serifs. (Sans is French for ‘without’).

Scale
The ratio between something real and the represented image of it. For example a scale of 1:4 represents something a quarter of its original size.

Scanner
A device which reads (in dot matrix form) a document and can reproduce it as a bit map on an electronic file. Scanners may be handheld, suitable for scanning small amounts of text or small graphics, or Flatbed, which usually take a single sheet of A4 paper. Monochrome and colour versions are available. Colour is more expensive. (See OCR)

Search and replace
A facility whereby a specified sequence of characters can be located and replaced by another sequence.

Serif
The short cross lines at the end of characters. These are intended to make letters more easily recognized and text easier to read.

Spellchecker
A facility that reads text and compares it with a word bank, querying any words it does not recognize. Very useful for the detection of typing errors.

Storage device
A device from which the computer reads data, and to which the computer writes data. Therefore an input/output device. Most often a disk drive, either local or on a network.

Stylesheet
A list of standard type styles which can be applied to paragraphs in a publication. This feature of DTP allows consistent layout and presentation.

System unit
The main unit of a computer system into which peripherals are connected. Sometimes called the CPU.

Text editor A simple word processor with limited facilities.

Text wrap
A feature whereby text flows round a graphic object. Wrap can be set off, so text flows over the object, square, so that it forms a rectangular frame, or set to follow the contours of the object.

Typeface
(See Font)

Typestyle
A defined and named set of attributes which can be applied to text objects.

Uppercase
The set of 26 characters ‘A’ to ‘Z’. THIS IS UPPERCASE (not lowercase).

VDU (Visual Display Unit)
Also called monitor or screen. An output device on which text or graphics is displayed in dot matrix form.

Zoom
The feature of a system which varies the size of the screen display of a publication. These setting between 400% (4 times actual size) and 10% (a tenth of actual size)

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Developing Feeds with RSS and Atom

June 26, 2009 by Roy Johnson

web services for bloggers

What’s a ‘feed’? And what are RSS and Atom? Answer – a feed is the automatic distribution of information from someone’s blog or web site, and RSS (Really Simple Syndication) and Atom are the technologies which deliver this information to your desktop. A friend recently emailed me someone’s blog entry. It discussed in excited terms the emergence of Web 2.0 or the Semantic Web. This is the next development for the Web whereby computers will be able to understand the meaning of and the relationships between documents and other data. Automatic web ad blog feeds are one part of that development, and Ben Hammersley’s timely manual is an introduction to the technology involved.

He is a very active technology journalist and blogger, and he knows whereof he speaks. First he explains the history of how there came to be two competing sets of standards – which is more interesting than you might imagine from that description. The advantages of accepting automatic feeds from others are fairly obvious, but why supply your own? Hammersley is in no doubt: it increases traffic to your site; helps with search engine rankings; improves relations with your users; and makes the Internet an altogether richer place, pushing semantic technology along and encouraging reuse.

For reading other people’s feeds, he describes both the available web-based readers and downloadable software. You can even receive feeds as email or on a mobile phone.

The central section of the book describes a variety of feeds and shows you the scripts you might need to implement them I say ‘might’, because for most people all this will be done for you using templates at sites like Blogger and Moveable Type. However, knowing the code gives you more control – and it isn’t all that complicated if you know some basic HTML or XML.

Assuming that you wish to publish a feed from your own blog or web site, he devotes a handy chapter to showing you how to maximise the chances it will be circulated and read.

He ends by offering a collection of recipes for creating and using feeds to do things such as keeping track of “404 Page Not Found” errors on your web site; downloading your favourite comic strip each morning; generating your own wish list at Amazon; automatically checking web pages are W3C valid; and receiving regular weather forecasts for your area.

He ends with what is one of the hallmarks of these O’Reilly publications – a comprehensive and annotated list of tools and resources. Most of these are free – so if you are interested in receiving or publishing feeds, you can start right now.

Buy the book at Amazon UK

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Ben Hammersley, Developing Feeds with RSS and Atom, Sebastopol: CA, O’Reilly, 2005, pp..253, ISBN 0596008813

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Developing Online Content

June 26, 2009 by Roy Johnson

The principles of writing and editing for the Web

Anybody who has worked on Web projects will know they can become very complex. And those who provide the textual content are often trapped between graphic designers striving for visual glamour, and clients who want to promote their message. This guide to the entire process offers both detailed advice on writing and editing, plus checklists of help on how to clarify the job of the content provider, and how to survive a project. The authors start out by explaining the role of the web author and editor. This tends to be a mixture – part designer, part content provider, part information architect, plus usability tester and proofreader.

They start with an excellent analysis of why so many business web sites are unappealing, inefficient, and downright bad. There’s a very good example of their makeover of the CIA web site, which spends too much time patting itself on the back. They improve its efficiency by ruthless pruning and making the information user-oriented. This is a master class in converting text from its print brochure origins to web-based delivery.

The focus throughout is on text, but they give plenty of attention to its close relationship with images on web sites. There’s also an interesting consideration of the theory, the psychology, and the creation of hypertext links.

They have a lot of interesting observations on the relationship between the Web page and the screen. The issues are those all Web authors confront: how to minimise scrolling; how to keep content in the reader’s mind; and how to create tight structure and clear navigation.

They also have valuable advice on creating editorial style guides and proofreading, plus an explanation of the latest technology and how it affects the content of a site.

It’s a professionally oriented book, which assumes readers might wish to work in the new medium. And they tell you how to go about it. There are tables and checklists of the skills you will require and even pointers towards the opportunities available and what rates to charge.

This is aimed at intermediate to advanced users – but it will be of interest to anybody who wants to extend their writing skills into the digital realm. I read this book whilst engaged on two medium-sized Web projects, and can confirm that all the roles, tasks, and collaborations they describe are 100 per cent accurate.

Buy the book at Amazon UK

Buy the book at Amazon US

Irene Hammerich and Claire Harrison, Developing Online Content: the Principles of Writing and Editing for the Web, New York: John Wiley, 2002, pp.384, ISBN 0471146110

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Device: Art, Commercial

June 27, 2009 by Roy Johnson

portfolio of contemporary graphic design

Rian Hughes is a designer who has captured very accurately a retro look of the 50s and 60s – flat colours, comic-book style, cocktail glasses, kidney-shaped ‘contemporary’ coffee tables, abstract design wallpaper. He has also been influenced by Japanese Pokemon design and more than a little by the British typographist Neville Brody. This collection of his work Device: Art, Commercial is from Die Gestalten Verlag – high quality design, print, paper, and production.

Hughes’ designs are for exhibition and travel posters, CD covers, comics, magazines, product advertising, font sets, dingbats, and book jackets. There are strong affinities with the French style of bandes dessinées, and some of the more intriguing examples here are visual narratives – stories told in a series of pictures without words.

There’s an amazing variety of material here – greetings cards, packaging, carrier bags, graphic novels, logos, stationery – though he seems at his strongest to me in his designs for adult comics and font sets. Every page is a treat in terms of colour and composition – and I’m sure this compilation will be a rich source of visual stimulation for graphic designers in all fields.

He also does a nice line in parodies. Dare is a satirically downbeat ‘controversial memoirs’ of Dan Dare from the Eagle comic, and TumTum and the Forged Expenses is a wonderful take-off of Tintin.

As a nice bonus, Device comes with a CD-Rom featuring a mini-Flash presentation, through which you can access free fonts and desktop wallpaper, and watch a selection of animated commercials and presentations, all designed by Hughes.

This is a very handsome production – except the supporting text is set at six points and printed on mid-grey paper. You’ll need a magnifying glass if you want to read any of the details.

Buy the book at Amazon UK

Buy the book at Amazon US

Rian Hughes, Device: Art, Commercial, Berlin: Die Gestalten Verlag, 2002, pp.288, ISBN: 3931126862

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DH Lawrence biographies and bibliographies

September 18, 2009 by Roy Johnson

arranged in chronological order of publication

1. D.H.Lawrence – Bibliographies, Handbooks, Journals

Warren Roberts, A Bibliography of D.H. Lawrence, 1963; revised. [The revised edition of this important Lawrence bibliography includes a section on the criticism].

Graham Holderness, Who’s Who in D.H. Lawrence, 1976.

Keith Sagar, D.H.Lawrence: A Calendar of His Works, 1979.

Keith Sagar, A D.H.Lawrence Handbook, 1982.

James C Cowan, D.H.Lawrence: An Annotated Bibliography of Writings About Him, Vol I (1909-60) 1982; Vol II (1961-75) 1985.

Thomas Jackson Rice, D.H.Lawrence: A Guide to Research, 1983.

The D H Lawrence Review, founded in 1968 by James C Cowan at the University of Delaware, is published three times a year. DHLR includes regular bibliographical updates as well as essays on a wide range of subjects to do with Lawrence, and reviews of recent work. Etudes Laurentiennes, founded in 1985, is published by the University of Paris X [Nanterre].

The Complete Critical Guide to D. H. Lawrence is a good introduction to Lawrence criticism. Includes a potted biography of Lawrence, an outline of the stories, novels, plays, and poetry, and pointers towards the main critical writings – from contemporaries T.S. Eliot and E.M. Forster to critics of the present day. Also includes a thorough bibliography which covers biography, criticism in books and articles, plus pointers towards specialist Lawrence journals.

2. Select Biography

R. West, D.H. Lawrence, London: Martin Secker, 1930.

A. Lawrence, Young Lorenzo: Early Life of D.H.Lawrence, Containing Hitherto Unpublished Letters and Articles and reproductions of Pictures, Florence: G. Orioli, 1931.

A. Lawrence and S.G. Gelder, Young Lorenzo: Early Life of D.H.Lawrence, Containing Hitherto Unpublished Letters and Articles and reproductions of Pictures, London: Martin Secker, 1932.

John Middleton Murry, Son of Woman: The Story of D.H.Lawrence, London: Jonathan Cape, 1931.

M. Dodge Luhan, Loenzo in Taos, New York: Knopf, 1932.

Aldous Huxley (ed), The Letters of D.H. Lawrence, London: Heinemann, 1932.

John Middleton Murry, Reminiscences of D.H. Lawrence, London: Jonathan Cape, 1933.

John Middleton Murry, Between Two Worlds: An Autobiography, London: Jonathan Cape, 1935.

D. Brett, Lawrence and Brett: A Friendship, Philadelphia: J.B. Lippincott, 1933.

Catherine Carswell, The Savage Pilgrimage: A Narrative of D.H.Lawrence, New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1932.

Frieda Lawrence, Not I, But the Wind…, New York: Viking Press, 1934.

E.T. [Jessie Chambers], D.H. Lawrence: A Personal Record, London: Cape, 1935.

K. Merrild, A Poet and Two Painters, London: Routledge, 1938.

Frieda Lawrence, The Memoirs and Correspondence [ed Tedlock] 1964.

E. Brewster and A. Brewster, D.H. Lawrence: reminiscences and correspondence, London: Secker, 1934.

Piero Nardi, La Vita di D.H.Lawrence, 1947. [The first full biography of DHL]

Richard Aldington, D.H.Lawrence: Portrait of a Genius, But…, London: Heinemann, 1950.

Harry T. Moore, The Life and Works of D.H. Lawrence, London: Unwin Books, 1951.

E. Nehls (ed), D.H. Lawrence: A Composite Biography, 3 vols, Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1957.

Harry T. Moore, A D.H. Lawrence Miscellany, London: Heinemann, 1961.

Harry T. Moore (ed), The Collected Letters of D.H. Lawrence, London: Heinemann, 1962.

Harry T. Moore, The Priest of Love, Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1954, revised 1974.

H.D. [Hilda Doolittle], Bid Me To Live, New York: Grove Press, 1960.

E.W. Tedlock Jr (ed), Frieda Lawrence: the Memoirs and Correspondence, London: Heinemann, 1961.

H. Corke, D.H. Lawrence: The Croydon Years, Austin: University of Texas Press, 1965.

Harry T. Moore and Warren Roberts, D.H.Lawrence and his World [illustrated] 1966.

Edward Nehls (ed), D.H.Lawrence: A Composite Biography (3 vols, 1957-9).

Emile Delavenay, [trans. K.M. Delavenay] D.H.Lawrence: The Man and His Work. The Formative Years: [1885-1919], London: Heinemann, 1972.

Robert Lucas, Frieda Lawrence: The Story of Frieda von Richtofen and D.H.Lawrence, 1973.

H. Corke, In Our Infancy: An Autobiography Part I: 1882-1912, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1975.

Paul Delany, D.H.Lawrence’s Nightmare: The Writer and his Circle in the Years of the Great War, Hassocks: Harvester, 1979.

Keith Sagar, The Life of D.H.Lawrence: An Illustrated Biography, 1980.

G. Neville (ed. C. Baron), A Memoir of D.H. Lawrence: (The Betrayal), Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981.

Anthony Burgess, Flame Into Being: The Life and Works of D.H.Lawrence, 1985.

Keith Sagar, D.H.Lawrence: Life Into Art, 1985.

John Worthen, D.H.Lawrence: A Literary Life, 1989.

Jeffrey Meyers, D.H.Lawrence: A Biography, 1990.

John Worthen, D.H.Lawrence: The Early Years: 1885-1912: The Cambridge Biography of D.H. Lawrence, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991.

Elaine Feinstein, Lawrence’s Women: The Intimate Life of D.H. Lawrence, London: Harper Collins, 1993.

Peter Preston, A D.H.Lawrence Chronology, 1994.

R. Jackson, Frieda Lawrence, Including ‘Not I, But the Wind’ and other Autobiographical Writings, London: Pandora, 1994.

Brenda Maddox, The Married Man: A Biography of D.H.Lawrence, London: Sinclair Stevenson, 1994.

Janet Byrne, A Genius for Living: A Biography of Frieda Lawrence, London: Bloomsbury, 1995.

M. Kinkead-Weekes, D.H.Lawrence: Triumph to Exile: 1912-1922, The Cambridge Biography of D.H.Lawrence 1885-1930, vol. 2, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996.

J.T. Boulton (ed), The Selected Letters of D.H. Lawrence, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997.

D. Ellis, D.H. Lawrence: Dying Game 1922-1930, The Cambridge Biography of D.H.Lawrence 1885-1930, vol. 3, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998.

D.H.Lawrence – web links

D.H.Lawrence at Mantex
Biographical notes, book reviews, study guides, videos, bibliographies, critical studies, and web links.

D.H.Lawrence at Project Gutenberg
A major collection of free eTexts of the novels, stories, travel writing, and poetry – available in a variety of formats.

D.H.Lawrence at Wikipedia
Biographical notes, social background, publishing history, the Lady Chatterley trial, critical reputation, bibliography, archives, and web links.

D.H.Lawrence at the Internet Movie Database
Adaptations of Lawrence’s work for the cinema and television – in various languages. Full details of directors, actors, production, box office, trivia, and even quizzes.

D.H.Lawrence archive at the University of Nottingham
Biography, further reading, textual genetics, frequently asked questions, his local reputation, research centre, bibliographies, and lists of holdings.

D.H.Lawrence and Eastwood
Nottinhamshire local enthusiast web site featuring biography, historical and recent photographs of the Eastwood area and places associated with Lawrence.

The World of D.H.Lawrence
Yet another University of Nottingham web site featuring biography, interactive timeline, maps, virtual tour, photographs, and web links.

D.H.Lawrence Heritage
Local authority style web site, with maps, educational centre, and details of lectures, visits, and forthcoming events.

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DH Lawrence critical essays

September 18, 2009 by Roy Johnson

criticism, novels, poetry, stories

These collections of essays and commentary often provide the best evidence of the state of D.H.Lawrence criticism at the time of their publication. The introductions in these works can also provide useful perspectives on Lawrence criticism – especially those in Hoffman/Moore (1953), Spilka (1963), Bloom (1986), and Jackson/Jackson (1988).

Collections of Essays

Frederick J Hoffman and Harry T Moore (eds), The Achievement of D.H.Lawrence, 1953.

Harry T Moore (ed), A D.H.Lawrence Miscellany, 1959.

Modern Fiction Studies 5, (1959) [DHL Number]

Mark Spilka (ed), D.H.Lawrence: A Collection of Critical Essays, 1963.

Ronald Draper (ed), D.H.Lawrence: The Critical Heritage, 1970.

W T Andrews (ed), Critics on D.H.Lawrence, 1971.

Harry Coombes (ed), D.H.Lawrence: A Critical Anthology, 1973.

Leo Hamalian (ed), D.H.Lawrence: A Collection of Criticism, 1973.

Stephen Spender (ed), D.H.Lawrence: Novelist, Poet, Prophet, 1973.

Andor Gomme (ed), D.H.Lawrence: A Critical Study of the Major Novels, 1978.

Anne Smith (ed), Lawrence and Women, 1978.

Robert B Partlow and Harry T Moore (eds), D.H.Lawrence: The Man Who Lived, 1979.

Peter Balbert and Phillip L Marcus (eds), D.H.Lawrence: A Centenary Consideration, 1985.

Jeffrey Meyers (ed), D.H.Lawrence and Tradition, 1985.

Harold Bloom (ed), D.H.Lawrence: Modern Critical Views, 1986.

Christopher Heywood (ed), D.H.Lawrence: New Studies, 1987.

Jeffrey Meyers, (ed) The Legacy of D.H.Lawrence: New Essays, 1987.

Dennis and Fleda Jackson (eds), Critical Essays on D.H.Lawrence, 1988.

Gamini Salgado and G K Das (eds), The Spirit of D.H.Lawrence: Centenary Studies, 1988.

Peter Preston and Peter Hoare (eds), Lawrence in the Modern World, 1989.

Keith Brown (ed), Rethinking Lawrence, 1990.

Michael Squires and Keith Cushman (eds), The Challenge of D.H.Lawrence, 1990.

Aruna Sitesh (ed), D.H.Lawrence: An Anthology of Recent Criticism, 1990.

Peter Widdowson (ed), D.H.Lawrence, [Longman Critical Readers] 1992.

Other genres

Tom Marshall, The Psychic Mariner…The Poems of D.H.Lawrence, 1970.

Sandra M Gilbert, Acts of Attention: The Poems of D.H.Lawrence, 1972.

M J Lockwood, Thinking In Poetry: A Study of the Poems of D.H.Lawrence, 1987. [This book contains a comprehensive bibliography of criticism of Lawrence’s poetry, in books, articles, and reviews]

A Banerjee, D.H.Lawrence’s Poetry: Demon Liberated, 1991.

Sylvia Sklar, The Plays of D.H.Lawrence, 1975.

INDIVIDUAL PROSE WORKS

Sons and Lovers

J.W.Tedlock (ed), Sons and Lovers: Sources and Criticism, 1965.

Julian Moynahan (ed), Sons and Lovers: Viking Critical Edition, 1968.

Gamini Salgado (ed), Sons and Lovers: A Casebook, 1969.

Judith Farr (ed) Twentieth-century Interpretations of Sons and Lovers, 1970.

Brian Finney, D.H. Lawrence: Sons and Lovers, Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1990.

Michael Black, D.H. Lawrence: Sons and Lovers, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992.

Rick Rylance (ed), Sons and Lovers: A New Casebook, 1996.

The Rainbow and Women in Love

Colin Clarke (ed), The Rainbow and Women in Love: A Casebook, 1969.

Stephen Miko (ed), Twentieth-century Interpretations of Women in Love, 1969.

Mark Kinkead-Weekes (ed), Twentieth-century Interpretations of The Rainbow, 1971.

P.T.Whelan, Myth and Magic in The Rainbow and Women in Love, 1988.

Duane Edwards, The Rainbow: A Search for New Life, 1990.

Charles L.Ross, Women in Love: A Novel of Mythic Realism, 1992.

[both these books appear in the Twayne Masterwork Series]

Lady Chatterley’s Lover

C.H.Rolfe, The Trial of Lady Chatterley, 1960.

Derek Britton, Lady Chatterley: The Making of the Novel, 1988.

The Short Stories

Kingsley Widmer, The Art of Perversity: D.H.Lawrence’s Shorter Fiction, 1962.

Keith Cushman, D.H.Lawrence at Work: The Emergence of the Prussian Officer Stories, 1978.

J.Temple, The definition of innocence: the short stories of D.H.Lawrence, 1979.

D.H.Lawrence – web links

D.H.Lawrence at Mantex
Biographical notes, book reviews, study guides, videos, bibliographies, critical studies, and web links.

D.H.Lawrence at Project Gutenberg
A major collection of free eTexts of the novels, stories, travel writing, and poetry – available in a variety of formats.

D.H.Lawrence at Wikipedia
Biographical notes, social background, publishing history, the Lady Chatterley trial, critical reputation, bibliography, archives, and web links.

D.H.Lawrence and Eastwood
Nottinhamshire local enthusiast web site featuring biography, historical and recent photographs of the Eastwood area and places associated with Lawrence.

The World of D.H.Lawrence
Yet another University of Nottingham web site featuring biography, interactive timeline, maps, virtual tour, photographs, and web links.

D.H.Lawrence Heritage
Local authority style web site, with maps, educational centre, and details of lectures, visits, and forthcoming events.

More on D.H. Lawrence
More on the novella
More on literary studies
More on short stories

Archives for 2009

optimising the user experience

provocative and radical examination of good web design

web-based course construction – from start to finish

XHTML + style sheets = creating ‘timeless code’

the language of word-processing and DTP

Desktop publishing terms

web services for bloggers

The principles of writing and editing for the Web

portfolio of contemporary graphic design

arranged in chronological order of publication

D.H.Lawrence – web links

criticism, novels, poetry, stories

D.H.Lawrence – web links

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