ZURB launched yet another handy design application to help anyone test Web products they're working on. This one is called Solidify. It takes care of one of the most annoying parts of building an interface: testing clickable prototypes. Solidify lets you build a working test of your design and give it to users to see if it makes sense to them. It also gives you analytics on how your testers performed.
Along with the new app, ZURB opened a new apps page showcasing all the great Web design helpers it has made, many of which we've covered on ReadWriteWeb. ZURB's tools let you make simple mockups, send images of pages for tester feedback, or collaborate on a wireframe with a team. Now, with Solidify, you can build working tests, too.
Shutterstock.com claims it is the first such venture to reach a total of 200 million downloads of licensed images of stock photography, vector graphics and other illustrations. "Searching the word 'networking' used to return images of handshakes and business contacts; now it's all about online social networking," says Jon Oringer, Founder and CEO of the company.
Entrepreneur aficionado extraordinaire Robert Scoble posited a question on his Rackspace blog yesterday asking if there is push back against HTML5 by the top mobile designers in San Francisco. He cited new apps Path, Storify and Foodspotting as prominent examples of great apps with acclaimed UX that were rendered in native languages as opposed to HTML5. Are top developers really pushing back against HTML5 or is Scoble once again a little too deep in his fantasy world?
If you've used the mobile social network Path recently, it's likely that you enjoyed the experience. Path has a sophisticated design, yet it's easy to use. It sports an attractive red color scheme and the navigation is smooth as silk. It's a social app and finding friends is easy thanks to Path's suggestions and its connection to Facebook.
In short, Path has a great user experience. That isn't the deciding factor on whether a tech product takes off. Ultimately it comes down to how many people use it and that's particularly important for a social app like Path. Indeed it's where Path may yet fail, but the point is they have given themselves a chance by creating a great user experience. In this post, we outline 5 signs that the tech product or app you're using has a great UX - and therefore has a shot at being the Next Big Thing.
Over half of all devices at this year's CES, the world's largest consumer electronics trade show, were Internet connected devices. Nearly 60% of those were non-traditional computing devices such as TVs, car devices, refrigerators and washing machines. In fact 90% of the TVs at CES were Internet-enabled.
As more and more devices in your home get connected to the Internet, the user experience becomes increasingly important. It's hard enough to use your PC sometimes, let alone fiddle with the remote on your Internet connected TV! So over the coming months we'll be exploring the world of User Experience design (a.k.a. UX design). We'll be interviewing UX experts and reviewing products that get it right - and some that get it wrong. We'll start by looking at how the user experience of televisions is becoming more interactive and what this will mean to your TV consumption habits.
COLOURlovers has announced a new sister site called Creative Market, which will allow digital designers to buy and sell assets like vector patterns, Photoshop brushes, gradients, fonts, photos and more. COLOURlovers founder Darius "Bubs" Monsef says this is the chance to "go big with our mission, which is to make design simple and accessible." Bubs wants to do for "mousemade goods" what Etsy has done for handmade goods, creating a peer-powered market for "casual creatives."
But Creative Market will also be an extensible platform. It is built on an API other sites and applications can use to integrate the store into their own services. "We're driving in-app purchases for creative content," Bubs says. Tired of leaving Photoshop, going to the browser, Googling for something you need, buying it and wrestling to install it? The COLOURlovers Creative Market will let you browse, buy and install new elements without leaving your workspace.
You've seen those eye tracking heat maps that show where most people look first when they land on a web page - why not turn eye tracking technology like that into a replacement for your mouse or your finger on a touchscreen?
That's what a Danish startup called Senseye claims to be doing; they say they've got software for Android that uses the front-facing camera to track a user's eye movement and then uses that to control what happens on the phone's screen. They're not alone in working on doing that kind of work, either. Eye tracking could be a big new way that users interact with their devices.
Arduino, the open source electronics platform with the adorable name, announced the beta availability of its version 1.0 today, 6 years since it was forked from the nearly 10 year old Wiring platform. Wiring released its 1.0 just three weeks ago.
As these platforms, which turn consumers into creators, reach this important milestone, are people really using them? What's the community around them like? What is the state of the Maker-o-Sphere, if you will? Looking from the outside, it appears that there is a thriving market of DIY electronics, that education is a high priority for the Maker community and that there's no shortage of new developments coming to light all the time. I thought I'd take this opportunity to share a few examples.
The responsive design revolution is upon us. With tablet and smartphone use soaring and changing our media habits, Web publishers no longer have a choice but to build designs that work properly on any device or screen size.
The hard-working Silicon Valley design firm ZURB has recently released version 2.0 of its responsive design boilerplate kit called Foundation, which is a fundamental framework for a one-size-fits all Web project.
It's been over a month since Facebook launched a "Developer Release" version its new profile page, the Timeline. The new design was supposed to have been made available to all of Facebook's users in "a few weeks," but it's now almost two weeks overdue. There's been no official word from Facebook on the delay, but my guess is that it's due to mixed feedback from early users.
I have been using the Timeline since Day 1, September 22. Personally, I love the new design. But for other early users, Timeline has messed up their main reason for visiting a person's Facebook profile: to quickly scan recent updates. While Facebook is used to mixed feedback for its re-designs, Timeline is a radical change from the old profile and so Facebook needs to be confident that its mass audience will easily adjust to the new design. Unfortunately for Facebook, Timeline does appear to have some usability issues.
