Carsonified

I recently found out that I was lucky enough (Thanks Hugh) to have a panel proposal chosen to go forward to the 2009 South by South West (SXSW) Interactive Panel Picker. My panel is called “Build a better team through web app development”. Here’s some background about the idea.

In July 2008 we spent four days building a Twitter mash up web app called “The Mattinator” using a web framework we had never used before (Django). We conducted the challenge publicly and blogged about each days progress daily. At the beginning of the week we weren’t sure if we would achieve our goals.

Ultimately the app did launch and we managed to get a post on TechCrunch talking about our project. We learnt a lot of things, both positive and negative. The aim of this panel is to talk about our experiences openly and explain why we feel building a web app in a short space of time will reap rewards for your company.

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Kevin Rose recently challenged me to shave my head for charity and it sounded like a great idea (and Gill even gave her blessing). So this Thursday, Aug 14th, is the big day. I’m going to shave my head live on Ustream.tv.

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I’ve recently just finished updating Carsonified’s 2008 ‘Future of’ event sites. So while the Event Planners iron out the finer details of the forthcoming events my focus is turned to the design of the 2009 event sites, which I get to design from scratch.

So where do I start?

We’ve already had a couple of meetings about the sites and we’ve set out the technical and functional criteria. The design is down to me.

I’ve been thinking a lot recently about the process of design because to be honest I’m still searching for one that works.

I’ve designed a load of projects over the years with some half decent results along the way… but using only a very loose design process I normally grind and crash my way to the project’s conclusion. So I’m eager (especially with the 2009 sites in front of me) to find design process that works.

So after some thought I’ve come up with a five point design process plan.

1. Just think

Put on some inspiring tunes and just think about your project in the loosest possible way (at this point anything goes, the crazier the ideas the better).

I sometimes find going for a run with some tunes for company gives me a ton of ideas. Thinking in bed before you go to sleep is quite thought-provoking too.

2. Look for inspiration

Make a note of your initial ideas and with them in mind hit the internet. Scour the web for anything related to your ideas and bookmark anything that catches your eye. Do the same with your bookshelf, newspapers and magazines. One thing I find helps is looking at non design related literature as you can often stumble across an unexpected visual gem when you’re least expecting it. It’s also useful to take a step back from current design trends when looking for inspiration as I sometimes find it’s easy for a project to start looking a bit like everything else out there. Remember if you find that perfect bit of inspiration in the back of some old 80’s gatefold album sleeve you can bet your bottom dollar that no-one else’s design is going to look like yours.

3. Sketch out rough designs

Spend some time sketching out your ideas in your notepad/sketchbook. Try and avoid jumping straight onto your computer (I’m guilty of this big time!).

I find going straight to your computer can give you a sort of ‘design tunnel vision’…basically meaning it’s easy to get stuck in a rut with your first design that wasn’t really thought through.

4. Start designing proper

So after sketching out a bunch of ideas you should have a much clearer idea of what direction you want to take your design. So designing in photoshop or xhtml/css etc should be a much easier process. Also once you feel confident with the route your taking in your design try not to get bogged down in minor details at this stage (I’m also guilty of this), you can do the the detail later when you happy with the bigger picture.

5. The devil’s in the detail

Hopefully now your photoshop and xhtml/CSS is going swimmingly and you’re nearing the end… well this is the time to pay attention to those small details as it’s often the attention to detail that makes the difference between good and great. If there’s something nagging you about a certain part of your design and you sort of know you should revisit it but don’t know if you can be bothered - just do it… It’ll be worth it in the end.

So what do you reckon? Is this a load of rubbish, is it just obvious?… or is there some value in it?
Does anyone have any thoughts or tips they could add? :)

A lot of geeks and developers out there are using Mozilla Firefox. It’s a fantastic browser, and I highly recommend it. Firefox has been a huge factor in the progress of web development. Where would we be without the Web Developer Toolbar and Firebug?

However, there’s one place you have to be careful using Firefox - password management. You know the little “Remember Password” button you click when you log in? Turns out Firefox doesn’t mind showing you the passwords you’ve saved, in plain text. It’s no secret - others have previously blogged about it - but it does bear repeating. This is the default behaviour, so if you haven’t already spotted this, then chances are it applies to you right now. That means someone unscrupulous can come along and read your passwords. Like this:

First, go into “Preferences” in Firefox (on a mac, hit Cmd-,) and head to the Security tab. Then click the Saved Passwords button as shown here:

This will bring up a Passwords window. I’m not showing you mine. But look for this button at the bottom right:

Press this button. Voila! All your passwords are shown, in plain text, on-screen. Please note, my password is not hunter2.

This means that someone can open up Firefox on your computer, and view all your saved passwords. The way to change this is to set a master password for Firefox. Close that passwords window, and go back to the Security preferences pane. There, you’ll see an option for “Use a master password”.

This means that Firefox protects all your saved passwords with a master password which is never shown. However, get used to seeing this prompt…

because it comes up ALL the time when you’re using password-authenticated sites. Personally, I use Webkit nightly builds for everyday browsing: they’re extremely fast and stable.