Loud Dog Links

April 28, 2009

• Five Reasons Why Developers are Switching to Mac
  I am now decidedly pro-mac for web development.
  by: Matt DeClaire | tags: development, mac, programming
• jQuery checkboxes
  These sure are purdy.
  by: Matt DeClaire | tags: design, javascript, jquery
• Loop11
  New online usability testing. Looks like it's in private beta now, but could be interesting.
  by: Josh Orum | tags: usability, userResearch, webdesign
• Let your links look like links (456 Berea Street)
  Don't make me think about where your links are! While you don't need to follow convention slavishly, keeping your links underlined helps users find them. The corollary to this is don't underline things that aren't links - people want to click on them.
  by: Josh Orum | tags: usability, webdesign

April 27, 2009

• Font Squirrel
  "100% free fonts for graphic designers. All with commercial-use licenses."
  by: Matt DeClaire | tags: design, fonts
• CiteDrag
  An interesting technique involving dragging text on page.
  by: Matt DeClaire | tags: javascript, programming

April 24, 2009

• How to Use the Sticky Footer HTML & CSS Code
  A potential strategy for the toolbox. I'm going to try it out before giving it a yeah/nay.
  by: Matt DeClaire | tags: css
• Who's Your Coding Buddy?
  Peer code reviews are invaluable. The trick is to make them happen. This is no small feat on small teams.
  by: Matt DeClaire | tags: process, programming

April 23, 2009

• Our Favorite Typefaces of 2008 (Typographica)
  Typographica's favorite new typefaces.
  by: Josh Orum | tags: design, fonts, inspiration

April 21, 2009

• Hunkering: Putting Disorientation into the Design Process (Jared Spool)
  Hunkering is pausing for a minute to compare the reality of your design to the vision of your design, reconciling and aligning the two. If you don't do this already (unconsciously), consider doing it consciously.
  by: Josh Orum | tags: design
• Fluid Images (Unstoppable Robot Ninja)
  Sweet technique for creating images that adjust to page width.
  by: Josh Orum | tags: css, webdesign, webdevelopment
• In Defense of Eye Candy (A List Apart)
  Research backs up claims that aesthetics make a difference to a product's usability and success.
  by: Josh Orum | tags: design, usability

April 16, 2009

• 10 Cool Things We'll Be Able To Do Once IE6 Is Dead
  I can't wait.
  by: Matt DeClaire | tags: css

April 12, 2009

• An Icon, Despite Itself (NYTimes)
  The glass Heinz Ketchup bottle represents the triumph of aesthetics over usability.
  by: Josh Orum | tags: design, usability
• Save the Internet with rev="canonical" (Chris Shiflett)
  Chris argues that websites should use internal URL shortening instead of third-party solutions (tinyurl, etc). This makes sense - we're already doing it for a few of our clients (though not using his method, which isn't ideal). The hotness is found in the addition of a "rev" tag that tells various social networks to replace long links with the new short link.
  by: Josh Orum | tags: seo, webdevelopment

April 9, 2009

• Tools for Analysing and Tracking Your Competitors (The Netsetter)
  There is an abundance of tools for analysing and tracking competitors, allowing you to quantify their traffic, see how their site has changed, find out details about their domain, be alerted when they are in the press and lots of other things. Most of these are better for sites that get a lot of traffic, but any information is better than none.
  by: Josh Orum | tags: business, competitiveResearch, webdesign, webStrategy

April 8, 2009

• The Secret of Great Online Customer Service (Peter Clark)
  Speed. Be so remarkably quick it surprises the user.
  by: Josh Orum | tags: business, marketing
• 15 Essential Checks Before Launching Your Website
  by: Matt DeClaire | tags: programming

April 7, 2009

• A List Apart: Articles: Findings from the Web Design Survey, 2008
  An interesting analysis of survey data on what others in the field of web design are doing since last year, how they are feeling about their jobs, how they stay current, etc.
  by: Jodi Wing | tags: reference, research, survey, web, webdesign
• Design View / Andy Rutledge - Gestalt Principles of Perception 3: Proximity, Uniform Connectedness, and Good Continuation
  Go Andy! More design principles that we employ at Loud Dog with every project. It's nice to touch base on these and confirm that our internal dialogues are consistent with these fundamentals.
  by: Jodi Wing | tags: design, layout, usability, webdesign