User Experience: Production Perspective
I believe we need to continually put more thought into how the design affects the front-end development (HTML, CSS, JavaScript, etc), how the front-end development affects the CMS (Content Management System), how the CMS affects the design and UI and what this does for users.
This is how I see UX (User Experience) from the design, development and CMS stages and how they are related:
As designers and developers, we affect each other's production work on projects, but don't always give it as much thought as we should. If we have problems and issues associated with the production side, that we don't clear up, the end user is going to suffer.
Coming from a graphic design/layout and print background, I've been fortunate enough to learn and be able to work from start to finish on websites. This included the design, the HTML and CSS and the development and integration of the CMS.
Now, when I've been hired to work on less than all three production areas there can sometimes be more work involved as I've had to ask for constant clarifications related to features and functionality to avoid problems that would drag the project out much longer than anyone expected. If those items weren't addressed we wound up having to go back and redo a lot of work later because end users were frustrated and/or confused when using the end product.
I'll be outlining more thoughts and some examples of these issues in later posts.
What are your thoughts on website production and how it affects the user experience?
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Current Reach of Flash on Mobile Devices
When thinking about the current reach of Flash on mobile devices, I looked up some statistics (wherever I could find them).
As of today, the Android userbase has approximately 5% of the mobile market share [1].
Android 2.2 (Froyo) has approximately 4.5% of that overall 5% market share when compared to Android versions 1.5 (15%), 1.6 (20.3%) and 2.1 (59.7%) [2].
This means that Android 2.2's current market share is: 0.00225% [3]
The recently released Adobe Flash player for mobile only works on Android 2.2 [4].
So what are the odds that your target audience is going to see your Flash-based web site on their mobile device?
References:
[1] http://androidcommunity.com/android-usage-takes-5-of-us-smartphone-traffic-20090325/
[2] http://developer.android.com/resources/dashboard/platform-versions.html
[3] Special thanks to Adam Jahnke (@adamyonk) and his math on that final percentage.
[4] http://www.adobe.com/products/flashplayer/systemreqs/#mobile
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Designer, Rebrand Thyself
Branding an unestablished business can be easier when it is someone else's business. As a design professional, though, branding and rebranding your own business can be difficult. We have all sorts of ideas and thoughts on what we like that it can be difficult to narrow down the best approach.
On the new VN website, I wanted to go a particular direction that made it difficult to work with the old logo. That's when I decided to update the brand. I'm very pleased with the results as it's short and to the point. Gone is the business name in all lowercase letters with the thinner thought bubble.
Now I have a concise, easy to use logo that enables me to market and reach more people in other ways (e.g. Facebook, Twitter, etc).
I'm completely happy and satisfied with it and, as a designer, it can be difficult to get to that point.