The Wilson Project Blog of UX/Front-End Developer Ivan Wilson

Menu Skip to Navigation

Tag Archive / front-end

  • HTML5 for Web Designers Book Review

    (Originally published on CDG Interactive/Innate blog)

    It’s back-to-school time, so here’s a pop quiz on today’s new buzz word: HTML5.

    1. What is it?
    2. Should I care?
    3. Should I worry?

    Answers: 1) see below, 2) yes, 3) not yet but soon enough

    So, now that you’ve taken the quiz, may I suggest a textbook? Specifically, HTML5 for Web Designers by Jeremy Keith.

    Now, I’ve known about HTML5 for a while (and some of the preliminary work around it). But when I heard about this book, I was curious how much more information could I gleam from its pages about HTML5. Judging by the title, I thought that it would be just an introductory text for web designers (not necessarily for experienced web developers).

    But, I took a chance. I ordered a copy and waited. And the package arrived.

    And when I first opened the box and held the book, the first thing that popped into my head was “Wow, this is a pamphlet!”

    OK, not a pamphlet but a brief, concise book (under 100 pages).

    However, from the very first page, it was evident that conciseness is the intent of the author. What Jeremy Keith does, with good effect, is to give the reader a brief synposis about HTML5, bypassing W3C language. (Alert: W3C documents are so precise, they could turn a cake recipe into a DVD instruction manual.)

    Of course, he starts off by answering what HTML5 is and is not–not a new version, but a much-needed upgrade for building future web applications. This means it not only adds/removes features, but also adds more semantic meanings attached to the current set of tags (important for Internet devices like mobile phone or screen readers.)

    For the remainder of the book, Keith highlights some important features and gives bits of advice for the newly introduced. The best thing is that he engages the reader enough to encourage further study in HTML5, which is not easy. This book could have easily become just another five pound dictionary. Of course, he remarks that there are others more experienced with this and points to some online resources. (As I am writing this, a number of new HTML5 books have popped up in the stores.)

    In the end, the author does what he planned out to do – give a nice gentle push in the right direction towards HTML5.

    Now, if you don’t mind. I have a list of HTML5 books to read.

  • Mental Steeplechase / Hurdle IA

    Charles - Home Page (w/ site revisions)

    After a some thought and some revisions, I decided that the homepage will take on the blog lister template. This caused the following changes in the primary navigation:

    1. Changed primary navigation with addition of “Home” link
    2. Changed “Information” with “About”
    3. Replacement of “Blog” (main blog page) with “Blog Links” (gray section below containing Blogroll, Archives, and Meta)
    4. Switched order of “Social Media” and “Blog Links”

    An additional change was the addition of the site byline to the header.

    As of today, this was the final substantial change to the look and feel of the Charles site. After almost a year and three concepts, Charles has its look and now I can move forward toward Charles’ completion in 1/1/2011.

    Next steps:

    1. Complete HTML5 code templates
    2. Move TWP site from Windows to Linux server
    3. Start initial steps/planning for CMS configuration

  • UI or UN? The Life of a Front-End Developer…The Lecture???

    No. Really.

    Basically, it originally started as an idea for me to do something close to work but outside the office.  However, there are a number of ideas that need fleshing out. Not just about work (dealing with bad HTML code) but also about ideas about Charles, TWP, front-end developement, and IxD.

    And linguistics.

    More news to come.