Geeks In Training - Latest Comments

Re: Developing websites — structure, content, and design

Michael Zimmermann — Sun, 03 Aug 2008 10:37:14 -0000

The movie site is a great example. They are almost universally over-designed, and every single one of them seems to have every possible new bleeding edge tech crammed into them. Apple's quicktime trailers pages aren't bad, though. Want trailers? You have the thumbnail, a cast and crew list, the synopsis, and the link to the trailers. When people are coming to a site for a specific reason, that's the time to grab them, not confuse them.

Granted, most movie sites attempt to make themselves 'sticky' by having extra stuff to do (games, viral sharing campaigns), but in doing so, they often overshadow or destroy the basic reasons for people to be there. Convince us to stay by first giving us what we want, not trying to force us into something else once we get there.

Re: Developing websites — structure, content, and design

Ian — Sun, 03 Aug 2008 02:54:04 -0000

Great article, I am working on something similar. Over design plays a huge roll too. Usability is king. There's so many good looking sites out there that still annoy the hell out of users and we just leave out of frustration. I would go so far to say that I am more likely to stay on an ugly site that is content rich and easy to navigate. I shouldn't even be thinking about how the navigation works, it should just work. If I'm thinking about it then it's not working. That doesn't mean we should have ugly sites, but it seems lately the priority of some sites is over weight in design. Movie sites are notorious for this. Usually we just want to see the trailer or screenshots without trying to guess where to click or now to get back to the main page.

Re: Jonathan Coulton played the Lula Lounge in Toronto!

Rock — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 09:28:30 -0000

Sent some to your in-box. Not much better than yours, I'm afraid. Makes me want to get a new digital camera with much better low-light picture-taking ability.

Re: Jonathan Coulton played the Lula Lounge in Toronto!

Michael Zimmermann — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 18:52:48 -0000

Sorry about the lack of photos from the event — it was a bit too dark, and I didn't get any good shots... if anybody was there and would like to send me some to post, I'll gladly do so.

Re: Yes, they have parties for browsers... when your browser is Firefox 3

Michael Zimmermann — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 10:20:21 -0000

At the end of the day, it was a great party and a good evening with a bunch of interesting people. My friend Ian stayed longer and had some more to say about the night... he's even a bit drunk on camera.

You can find the link to his blog up above.

Re: Set up your own domain : Part 1

Michael Zimmermann — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 13:35:48 -0000

UPDATE:

There are changes in the works that will come out in the second quarter of 2009. Essentially, TLDs are being opened up (the ".com" etc. at the end of a domain name). More info here:
http://www.icann.org/en/announ...