Web page design best-practices used to dictate designer for a monitor of 640 x 480 pixels, then 800 x 600 pixels, and at a recent meeting I heard one of our schools lead web designers say they’re new minimum is the 11xx screen width. Which with browser windows, toolbars, etc. give an effective width of something like 960 pixels. But want to be sure? Take a quick tour around the Google browser sizer .
Here is an interesting new project dealing with creation of data visualizations. With the mountains of data we can collect, data visualizations are becoming essential to unraveling the mysteries held there within. The project at the moment isn’t quite plug-n-play, but if you are comfortable with html and don’t mind tinkering around with it you can generate some pretty cool looking visuals.
OpenSolairs 2008.11 is running great on my Latitude D620 these days. And the coming improvements for 2009.06 sound great. Despite the rocky times at Sun in recent months it is comforting to see development work hasn’t been derailed.
On the last day of the Seattle Post Intelligence newspaper, it is comforting to see a news organization embracing an open strategy. The New York Times has been releasing bits of its application programming interface (API) recently, and recently held a workshop day for developers. This is a great resource and an interesting example for other organizations. In the long run this may not save the NYT, but it certainly beats trying to hold back the rising tide. And if the New York Times start showing up in little bits on sites all over the web, their brand will benefit. I am not quite sure how they make money, but Google has shown that free is a business strategy — and a pretty successful one at that.
Visualizations are really essential for application design. Flow charts and wireframe mockups in Visio work well, but I’ve never found a tool for mocking up the actual interface. Visio isn’t flexible enough, and something like Illustrator takes too long. Balsamiq, only in production for less than a year, offers a very well executed bit of software to fill in the gap. Balsamiq offer a selection of objects targeted for user interfaces, streamlining your work. Check out their samples page to get a better idea of the types of objects available.
Here’s another gallery of data visualizations. All have large PDFs for download available.
Randall Rode's online home for thoughts, notes, and experiments with a wide range of technology topics. Visit the about page for info on my recent projects and professional background. I welcome your comments!
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