Author Archive

Shooting HDR with Nikon D3000 – Tutorial

Like many other designers and developers, I also have an itch for photography.  After scouring the internet for a tutorial on how to – specifically – shoot HDR photos with my new Nikon D3000, I was a bit disappointed.  I found some interesting posts and discussions, but no real step by step guide specific to the D3000.  So, after it’s all said and done, I decided to post one myself.

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Preload External FLV in Flash

So I was tasked with solving a unique issue – I need to create a video player that preloads a FLV in FULL before beginning playback.  This is to ensure that regardless of where the actual FLV is hosted, all users worldwide will experience seamless playback, with high quality video.  Here is how I did it.

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Userfly Review

As a usability expert, I decided to quickly review Userfly (http://www.userfly.com) and share my findings with the community.  

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CSS Sliding Doors – In SAP EP!

In this article, I want to share the CSS “Sliding Doors” technique by providing the code.  Also, I want to share a way in which this was implemented successfully into SAP EP in order to control the look and feel of the first level top navigation (tabs).

 
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Company Portal Best Practices

Efficiency, memorability, and error reduction are the three most important usability attributes considered in the design of an intranet or portal.  Read the rest of this article to learn more about these three principles.

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5 Amazing Photoshop Actions

Normally, as far as design and photo editing goes, I avoid using someone else’s actions in Photoshop.  I tend to find that it is harder to implement your own style as a designer if you use other artists’ actions.  However, these five are hard to ignore, and belong in any designer’s arsenal.

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Example Usability Test

 

Below is a short example usability test, as provided by Usability.gov.  It is a nice, informal usability test.  To find out more, or to view other tests and reports, including a formal usability test, visit their site.  

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10 Things A Portal Must Have

Obviously, most companies are moving towards having intranet portals.  However, companies often fail to do it right.  Although developing a global portal for your company doesn’t seem difficult, the challenges are overwhelming.  Read about 10 things that all portals must have.

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Design Darwinism

Back in the day, when UI’s and design for usability was first coming around, companies like Xerox has money to burn on closed session testing, video taped user testing sessions, and more.  They experimented with different UI possibilities behind closed doors, and had the luxury of only releasing a well tested UI.  Today, UI experiments are happening all around us.

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Deep Linking and Usability Criteria

If you haven’t heard the term before, deep linking describes designing a site being constructed in a way to allow users to bookmark a location within the site to return to.  What is the alternative?  making the user start from the home page with every visit.  This article explores deep linking in relation to usability.

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