With the rise of custom typography (via @font-face) on the web, we designers now have thousands of typefaces to choose from when laying out our designs. But as we begin to shift our prefrences away from "web safe fonts" which, in almost all cases, were designed and optimized explicity for on screen use, how do we avoid choosing typefaces that harm the usability, readability, and accessibility of our websites and applications?
Without the constraints that old standbys like Georgia, Lucida, and Verdana placed on our projects (and on our clients' web identities) how do we navigate the sea of possibilities to choose typefaces that are brand (and screen) appropriate?
In a volatile end-user landscape (browsers and mobile devices with different screen sizes and resolutions, media consumption in vastly different environments, contexts, and situations) how should we be setting type?
In this talk I will explore a few strategies and possible solutions to the concerns outlined above. In so doing, I hope to equip audience members with a toolset to help them make intelligent type-related design decisions for the web.
What happens after someone downloads your app? Most likely, that user stops opening up your app. User engagement is one of the biggest hurdles in growing your mobile app, but gamification is an approach that seeks to buck the trend of decreasing app activity. Gamification—making the experience like a game—is what fuels mayorships in foursquare or badges in Gowalla. The newest and most popular apps gamify their social connections, rewarding their users for their activity and challenging them to keep up with the app. It makes the mobile experience more dynamic and interactive, so where will this trend go as mobile continues to take off? What are the big gamified apps on the horizon, and more interestingly, how will this play out as the mobile experience becomes a more social experience?
Building a website can be an undertaking and if poorly executed the outcome can crumble. Having a solid design process and strategy in place will help ensure that your website meets your standards and is a success. This Design Process workshop outlines the steps involved in properly researching and planing for a website, demonstrates the key points in strategizing a websites architecture, visual design and development, and shows you how to launch and grow your website with confidence.
