GUI Tip: Tabs need to keep state

March 18, 2008 By Jeremiah Staes Leave a Comment

Here’s a fast, free GUI (Graphic User Interface) tip.

Your navigation is extremely important – it “orients” visitors to your site.

If you decide to use tabbed navigation, it works a lot like a physical folder would – the tab is attached the folder, and when you pull on the tab, the folder opens.

However, it’s very common in the web world due to lazyness or lack of programming skill to make the tab not “save state.”  That means, if you click on a link, when the new page loads the tabbed navigation should change so that the tab that is “active” (or looks “connected”) to the page below should be the new page.

Even worse is if you click on different page tabs and the active tab that is connected to the main content stays the same – so you go to the media room, but the navigation bar looks like you’re still on the home page.  It confuses visitors.

Not changing state is lazy programming – it can be done a variety of ways (even in flash) – and a little thing to look for to decipher the skill of your prospective developer.

Filed Under: Graphic Design, Interaction Design, Web Sites

Excellent Apple Flash Ad – “Don’t Give Up On Vista”

December 14, 2007 By Jeremiah Staes Leave a Comment
great-apple-ad.jpg

Sometimes, you look at an ad, and go, “Cool.”

Double-buy ads have plagued sites for years, because so often it’s the same copy or creative just in a horizontal or vertical format – and are just plain ugly.

However, Apple has set the standard again for creatives, migrating their Mac vs. PC commercial to a web page near you (here’s a link the New York Times, but I don’t think it’s going to be up forever, so no guarantees of quality. To give you an idea, I put a screen shot of the ad up there) with a great coordinated ad that takes the usual Mac vs. PC skit on the side and puts it in a leaderboard on the top of the page.

Great work, again. This is the kind of stuff that makes for fun work and innovates to get people to click.

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Filed Under: Advertising, Graphic Design, Kudos

Make My Logo Bigger!

November 18, 2007 By Jeremiah Staes Leave a Comment

Hilarious little video about the constant bane of many designer’s existences – the fact that so many clients insist on large logos, obnoxious, loud (and ineffective, by the way) colors.

Thing is – your designer does know something.  He should listen – and if you feel your designer isn’t listening, it might be time to change – but you’re hiring him/her to do a job, and give space to let them make you look great!

Enjoy!

http://www.makemylogobiggercream.com/

Filed Under: Graphic Design