The impact of confidence in design...

A colleague recently introduced me to this article which details the relationship between Steve Jobs and Paul Rand centering on a specific incident when Steve Jobs approached Paul Rand to design the logo for NeXT. When first asked to design multiple iterations, Paul Rand takes issue with it and announces "No, I will solve your problem for you. And you will pay me" which may have at first taken Steve Jobs aback but if anyone can appreciate such a stance it would be Steve Jobs who was never afraid of a little self-belief either. Paul Rand duly delivered on his promise and a great working relationship, mutual respect & friendship was born.

The article though takes on the wider subject of confidence in designers. It's very astute in pointing out that often the nature of designers leads them to want to please and while in principle this approach is a good thing, Paul Rand questions if by presenting multiple ideas the designer is showing a lack of focus and indecision. In presenting a flurry of options the designer isn't making any decisions leading to design by committee which may turn out to turn even the best initial idea into a frankenstein of a project. The argument is while it's probably a necessity to explore many options when prototyping your design, ultimately finding a focused direction and presenting that may well result in a better end result and a result the designer can feel a greater sense of ownership on.

Of course not everyone gets to works with someone with the vision of Steve Jobs, and hardly anyone can claim to have the design chops of a Paul Rand, but all that aside the article definitely got me thinking about the role of a designer in influencing the direction of his/her work.

Mobile Strategy & Implementation

I think most companies are adapting to the dramatic increase in the number of visitors accessing their site on a mobile device and the sheer wealth of devices out there. In the burgeoning field of mobile design it's worth having a real strategy of what you want to achieve and how to go about it, this article from Smashing Magazine goes a long way to explaining some of the options out there. It will really depend on the intricacies of your sites and what strategy it lends itself to.

With the sites I manage, we decided breaking down the mobile experience to only what was crucial to the user experience was the correct way to go. The mini or single page sites are very much conversion driven and offer a skeleton view of the key content and information. I tried to make them as fluid and scallable as possible, leading with phone call to action but including a single step form on there too. All the sites are being tested in a rotation as we have a lot to learn about our mobile audience and what makes them tick. Here are a couple of examples of the sites I designed for our mobile traffic..

• Total Injury 3 Page Mini-Site
• Total DUI 5 Page Mini-Site
• Clear Bankruptcy 3 Page Mini-Site

While with HTML5/CSS3 there is a real genuine desire to standardise the cross browser web experience, with mobile the plethora of devices and their individual capabilities means having a universal experience that suits an aging blackberry as equally as brand new smart phone, is nigh on impossible. You can well and truly pull your hair out testing your mobile site across devices and browsers, starting with blackberry simulators, but ultimately I prefer simple web based simulators such as this for Opera (a popular browser with blackberries) and this which caters for a no of devices. Both of which give you an indication of how your site is viewed but a more well rounded QA process is probably needed.

Failing all this if you'd like to use another company to manage your mobile experience generally I have nothing but good things to say about mobify the Canadian based company. In our case it was a stop gap but they offer a free basic service and take care of some of the headaches for you. Ultimately controlling and hosting your own mobile sites is recommendable long term though.

Jamaica Difference....

Well I'm not sure what kind of difference I did make, but I did put together this Wordpress skin for the charity Jamaica Difference. The charity focuses on providing education resources & improving facilities for schools in Jamaica. The site incorporates colors indicative of Jamaica and I tried to build a simple two column layout that is fluid and flexible enough for them to work with. Not too much to see in the interim until they build out the content but the layout is in place. It was my first time using some of the features of Wordpress 3.0, but I realize this familiarity comes just in time for the release of Wordpress 3.1, oh well!!

You can visit the site here www.jamaica-difference.com

Favicons....

So rather than my usual 1024 canvas, I have been designing within the rather rigid confines of 16px by 16px as I attempt to rectify the favicon situation with a lot of the sites I manage! Favicons had either been neglected entirely or we're maybe out of date or paths had changed, and while retroactively taking care of this it got me thinking about favicons in general and their use and power.

Hardly the top of any designers priority list but favicons can add credibility to a site and in doing so for lead generation sites may even in some small facet aid conversions. I was led to Smashing Magazine's '50 Remarkable Favicon' list way back from 2007 it looks like which included some really interesting work under such restraints. I did my best designing both a favicon for my own site www.stevenprobinson.com along with sites such as www.chapter7.me and www.totalcriminaldefense.com/. It certainly helps if the site logo lends itself to manipulation at such a small canvas size else a more creative solution is necessary.

This link talks about some of the technical requirements, I stuck with .ico files although many browsers are accepting .pngs for instance. You can also download extensions and plugins for photoshop to generate .ico files but I ended up using http://www.convertico.com/ which was painless enough.

The day has finally come....

I have been threatening for a while but I have finally updated my online design portfolio, I think the last time it saw any real attention was 2006 so it's been much overdue!

The new portfolio can be found in the same place as the old one;) www.stevenprobinson.com

Comments, feedback, suggestions etc...always welcome, my skin is thicker than one would think!

Test & Target's new release...

So I've had three months to get to grips with the new upgrade of Adobe's Omniture Optimization Plan Test & Target and I really like the direction of the platform. It was very much a UI change as opposed to adding really new functionality but some of the updates have been about engaging users to discuss and highlight campaigns. The launch pad, the campaign spotlight, the ideas list and objective & notes fields are all about focusing your testing strategy. Some of the ease of use for a designer has been lost as it has this more executive level focus but I figure the next steps will be a more customizable dashboard where users can set up a view that suits their individual role.

I had a sneak preview of all the changes as I was lucky enough to be involved in the Beta Test Program a month prior to it's November 4th release and it was pretty fascinating watching how a company like Adobe handles it's beta tests. There was an open forum amongst the companies trialing this, and Adobe had us adhere to a specific script we were to go through. Add to this I was rewarded with an Adobe Beta clock/calender/alarm and temperature gauge all in one, it wasn't that bad!

Getting the juice from Infographics...

Like a lot of savvy technology firms, the company I work for also jumped on the Infographic bandwagon and over a year later we are starting to see the benefits SEO wise of this work. Maybe the social media hemisphere is beginning to tire of infographics and data visualizations or at least be somewhat clued into some of the more manipulative approaches. However the viral appeal means it will always be a great tool for a company to potentially reach a huge audience and the number of links redirecting back will be SEO gold. From a designer perspective some of the most interesting work on the web have been the product of infographics - trying to less conventionally show often complex information, but keeping it visually interesting and engaging is no mean feat. Checking out www.infographicsshowcase.com/ or www.coolinfographics.com/ will turn you on to the rich tapestry and variety of work out there.

I myself ended up designing three infographics around the general theme of bankruptcy. See below...