Web Designer Ramblings - Photo of the Day

Today's Web Designer Ramblings Photo of the Day is from the Old Tuscon Studios, a western movie studio near Tuscon, Arizona. This movie studio was used for numerous western's and provides tours, rides and shows in the western theme. It is quite a bit of fun to visit, and is located in beautifully rugged countryside just outside of Tuscon. This scene is from a "Billy the Kid" show at the studio.

Bing! Will Great Web Design Win Out?

In it's new search engine Bing.com, Microsoft has one of the best designed products it has ever produced. No other product in the Microsoft stable has as appealing an interface and ease of use. I found a recent focus group based study that tested Bing vs Google usability. Interestingly, the group overwhelmingly preferred the web design of Bing. In particular, they liked the welcoming design and organization of Bing, soundly beating Google in those two areas. Yet, none were moved to switch from Google to Bing.

That is in line with my own feelings. As a web designer, I give Microsoft high marks for the interface design of Bing. The compelling photos and home page content really draw you in. In fact, I will usually visit Bing once a day just to see the newest home page photo and trivia links. However, I personally do not feel that it matches Google in search results. Also, Google is a proven performer that also offers a host of other products that I use. Bing cannot match that . . . at least for now.

It will be interesting to see how this plays out in the future.‎ Will Bing influence Google's interface design, or will Microsoft develop other complementary applications to bolster Bing's appeal? At the very least, the competition will be fun to watch!

Spirituality Makes For Happier Children

Medical experts have long established a connection between adult spirituality, and happiness. Recent studies have connected spirituality to longevity in life and the enhanced ability to cope with adversity and illness. Now, similar benefits are being observed in children as well.

A recent study indicates that spirituality determines how happy children are, according to a recent study by Dr. Mark Holder, University of British Columbia in Canada and colleagues Dr. Ben Coleman and Judi Wallace. Their research shows that children who feel that their lives have meaning and value and who develop deep, quality relationships - both measures of spirituality - are happier.

Both spirituality (an inner belief system that a person relies on for strength and comfort) and religiousness (institutional religious rituals, practices and beliefs) have been linked to increased happiness in adults and adolescents. In contrast, very little work has been done on younger children. In an effort to identify strategies to increase children's happiness, Holder and colleagues set out to better understand the nature of the relationship between spirituality, religiousness and happiness in children aged 8 to 12 years. A total of 320 children, from four public schools and two faith-based schools, completed six different questionnaires to rate their happiness, their spirituality, their religiousness and their temperament. Parents were also asked to rate their child's happiness and temperament.

The studies reached a number of key conclusions. They suggest that strategies aimed at increasing personal meaning in children - such as expressing kindness towards others and recording these acts of kindness, as well as acts of altruism and volunteering - may help to make children happier.

More Happiness in Giving!

As a self-employed web designer for more than ten years, I have worked with many new and aspiring entrepreneurs. Some are determined to acquire great wealth, others simply want to earn a comfortable income while having time for more meaningful goals in life. What role does our income play in achieving happiness?

"Money makes you happy—if you give it away," reads a headline in The Globe and Mail of Canada. Although most people surveyed predicted that spending on themselves would make them happier, those who used their money to help others—regardless of the amount spent—actually reported greater happiness. "Wealth is not a predictor of happiness, study after study has shown," says the newspaper. "Once people have enough money to meet their basic needs, getting more of it doesn't give them much of a boost."

Dirt, Breakfast of Champions?

Ah, what a woefully unnatural profession web design is! You sit for hours on end, staring at a screen two feet from your face, while moving nothing more than your right hand as it grips a semi-circular glob of plastic. To make matters worse, you're probably drinking an artificially flavored soft drink infused with obscene amounts of high-fructose corn syrup. Well now, it may be time to mix a bit of soil-borne bacteria from your home-grown veggies to that healthy diet of yours!

Researchers are discovering that growing your own food—however much or little you can do—is better for your health than anyone ever suspected" says Psychology Today. Research showed that when "certain strains of soil-borne mycobacteria" were ingested or inhaled, they "sharply stimulated the human immune system." Thus, says the magazine, "it looks increasingly like ingesting components of the soil itself might be as critical to human health as the very finest fruits and vegetables grown on it."

Would you like a side order of dirt with that order? It's good for you!

New Photography Blog Web Design

I have, only this evening, completed a series of tweaks and upgrades to my photography blog web design. This blog features my Arizona and New Mexico Photos (including a large section of Albuquerque Photos) that I have shot over the past five years. I have fiddled with this web design over the past year. Now, I finally have something I am reasonably happy with! I will discuss the design process in a bit more detail when I add this design to my web design portfolio. Until then, please visit http://abqstyle.com, and let me know what you think!

Online Resume Web Design

I recently completed the web design for an online resume for an IT professional who specializes in government contracting. It was the first one I've done and I'm quite proud of it. The design uses a blog format to insure that all the key information on the candidate is easily seen. It also uses graphics to support the market sectors where the client has the greatest experience, and seeks further employment. I would love to get your thoughts on this design!

Compassionate Design

It is heartwarming to see a practical application of design used to solve some of the world's most pressing problems. More than a billion people in the developing world need glasses. But opticians are not available to the majority of the world's poor. In some places the ratio is one to one million residents. Pondering this problem, Oxford University physics professor Joshua Silver came up with a brilliantly simple solution: a pair of eyeglasses, currently costing about $19, that the wearer can adjust. Silicone oil is injected into a gap between two sheets of plastic until the lens provides sharp vision. The inventor’s field research shows the correction can be better than that of prefab glasses sold at a store.

As director of the new nonprofit Centre for Vision in the Developing World, Silver envisions a billion pairs on needy eyes by 2020. So far, 30,000 pairs are in use in Africa and eastern Europe, two-thirds distributed through U.S. military aid programs. Now that is good design!

The potential for using technology, design and other resources to adequately address poverty is within our reach, but not our will. According to a 2005 United Nations Children’s Fund report, successfully combating world poverty would only cost between $40 and $70 billion. Compare that to the worldwide annual budget for military expenditures which, as of 2004 was over $1100 billion.

Napping for Web Designers

As a self-employed web designer, I have a good amount of control over how my time is used. Occasionally, I will take a brief midday or afternoon nap. I find that it recharges me and helps me to think more clearly. In fact, when I worked for a large web development firm a few years ago, they had a room set aside for taking brief naps. That short rest is good for the creative process! Now, researchers are finding another good reason for taking an occasional nap.

A study of over 23,000 Greek men and women concluded that taking at least three daytime naps a week may reduce the risk of death from heart attack by 37 percent. “There is considerable evidence that both acute and chronic stress are related to heart disease,” explains Dimitrios Trichopoulos, a researcher and an epidemiologist at the Harvard School of Public Health, U.S.A. “An afternoon siesta,” he says, “may act as a stress-releasing process [and] reduce coronary mortality.”

Now you can feel less guilty about taking that afternoon siesta. It's good for your heart!

Web Designer Ramblings - Photo of the Day

Today's Web Designer Ramblings - Photo of the Day is of beautiful spring flowers. There is something about flowers that reveals to me the personality of our Supreme Designer. We do not need flowers to survive on earth. Evolution cannot explain their existence, much less our appreciation for their beauty. Their astounding diversity and beauty testifies to how our Creator feels about mankind. His creative works gives evidence of his love for us, and his desire to make our lives endlessly delightful.

Flowers also furnish evidence of the mathematical genius behind their design. If we examine flowers, we will find that the number of petals on a flower is often one of the Fibonacci numbers. The Fibonacci pattern, a mathematical basis for the way flowers grow and are designed, was discovered by mathematician Leonardo Pisano Fibonacci in the 11th century. Flowers are not 'freehand' designs but reveal amazing intelligence and discipline. Only a superior intelligence, a Creator could provide that.

As a web designer, I am constantly humbled by the evidence of design I see in creation. We puny humans may boast of our achivements, but they are barely a film of dust on the scales when weighed against the majestic works of our Creator!

Cool Web Designers Online Tools

As web designers, we are tethered to the Web by necessity. Therefore, it is a boon to have online tools that make our business and personal lives more efficient. I have listed a couple of truly useful new free (aaah . . . free . . . love that word) tools below that you may find of value . . . even if you are not a web designer!



Since I juggle three phone lines, the service below is a wonderful asset, and it is a free service! Google is offering a new service named Grand Central, that provides you with one central number that is not tied to any specific phone. When someone calls the Grand Central Number, it will ring all of your phones, home, cell, work and so on. If you then pick up any of those phones, Grand Central will tell you who’s calling and you can choose to accept or not. Cell phones may come and go, but this service insures that you always have one number that is constant and can be used to access you even if you phone-based numbers change. Great idea . . . and free!



Vyew is an online meeting and collaboration service that allows you to interact online with customers, clients and business associates. With Vyew you can give a presentation to a hundred people online or post a document you've been working on for review by your colleagues at their convenience. Vyew is extremely flexible allowing you to bring online collaboration and conferencing into your workflow on your terms. The basic service is free.

A Web Designer's Thoughts on Bing

All the web pundits are trying to forecast the potential success or failure of Microsoft's new search engine Bing. I'm not smart enough to do that. I'm just a web designer. So, as a designer, I will share my thoughts on the "look and feel" of Bing.

I like the design of Bing. In fact, I would consider this the best designed product to ever come out of Microsoft. The home page offers an image a day that is truly interesting, and informative in a appealing way. There is a playfulness in the presentation that adds a bit of fun to the search process. I often find myself stopping to learn more about the cover photo or being distracted by something seen on a page during a search. The overall presentation is both clean and colorful, and makes excellent visual application of current web coding 'tricks of the trade.'

Comparing Google to Bing is like comparing a performance oriented BMW to the plusher Cadillac CTS. Google is pure performance with little fluff, Bing is a plush luxury vehicle with some performance enhancements. For now, Google is my preference for raw results. However, I am keeping a close eye on Bing, visiting at least once a day. The search engine race has suddenly become interesting!

Web Designer Ramblings - Photo of the Day

Today's Web Designer Ramblings Photo of the Day is one of the first photos I shot after becoming rather serious about photography. It is a photo of beautiful flowers found at the Rio Grande Botanic Garden in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Oddly enough, I was testing a classic Minolta X-700 film SLR camera and this is a shot from that test roll. However, it is by far the most popular image I have ever captured.

I will be selling high quality prints of some of my favorite photos of the past five years. Web design has been the perfect adjunct to my photography pastime. The skills necessary for my occupation as a web designer has been a valuable asset for my photography. I hope you enjoy viewing my photos as they are added to the newest section of my web design portfolio: A Web Designer's Photos

A Web Makeover in Progress

We are still in the process of doing a redesign of our web design portfolio! That is why you will see about half of the pages still have the old design. Since we are doing the redesign, we decided to review each page and update each web page manually, checking for bad links, updating images and content, so that the site is as up-to-date, error free, and relevant as possible.

I am exploring the potential of creating web design that is elegantly simple in coding yet visually sophisticated. All of the content pages, in fact the entire website is pure CSS, free of javascript, ajax, etc. and only one image is used for the layout design. This, hopefully,produces simply coded pages that both please the viewer and search engines. So far so good!

Tables Vs. CSS based Web Design

I am often tickled by the misconceptions surrounding the use of tables in web design vs more current CSS based positioning of web page elements. Both approaches can produce elegant designs. However, some have expressed a concern that using a tables-based web design may cause the website to become obsolete at some point in the near future. This is not true. All web browsers must support every form of html no matter how ancient. Backwards compatibility is essential for serving the widest possible audience on the web. That will not change anytime soon.

I have never been a proponent of using the most current technology simply because it is the most current. I use what I know works best for the project at hand. I currently design websites that may use either CSS based positioning or tables. My main concern, frankly, is making sure the web design serves both the needs of the viewer and the requirements of search engines. How do the search engines view the tables vs css debate? Well, the source has spoken! The video below provides Google's answer (by way of Matt Cutts, Google spokesman) to the question: "Are CSS-based layouts better than tables for SEO?" If you are the current owner of a tables-based website you may find their response . . . well . . . comforting!



Don Peterson, Newark1 Web Design Portfolio & Guide