2010

Brian Suda ponders some techniques for maintaining correct color contrast whilst still offering your users the ability to customise their own color scheme. So put your slippers on, kick back with a sherry and let the algorithms do the work.

Andrew Clarke whittles his early photographic experience into an innovative approach to deciding what matters most in a user’s experience of a visual design – capture and order what needs to remain consistent, and share the process (and the port and stilton) with clients.

Ethan Marcotte explains the theory and practice of CSS gradients, separates the duelling syntaxes and wields a mean color-stop. No longer will gradients confound, baffle or frustrate. Just leave the rainbows to the unicorns.

Relly Annett-Baker extends this year’s daily December dose of web goodness to encompass the Twelve Days of Christmas, all leading towards an epiphany of delight in your content. Whip your content into shape for the New Year! And watch out for a strategically placed tea tray…

Meagan Fisher mines her dissipated youth for ways of coping with procrastination and distractions, and gives us some advice for dealing with those times when concentrating on the task at hand is difficult. Just in time for your new year resolutions, perhaps?

Paul Annett illustrates the benefits of sketching to convey and record ideas for wireframes and other project objectives, with some useful techniques to raise your scribble from doodle to diagram. The reverse side of all that wrapping paper should become tempting…

Paul Hammond injects some pace into page rendering with a nifty idea to allow the most important content to take precedence over your site’s more decorative baubles. What’s Christmas without the anticipation?

Sarah Parmenter reminds us that visual design for iOS devices involves more than just a smattering of CSS media queries. With a few extra steps, you can make your iPhone site work harder and put yourself in Santa’s good books.

Simon Collison transmutes established design vocabularies and principles into new patterns and methods for modern web design. By immersing ourselves in the language and uses of visual design, we can speak and think more eloquently about what we do. Even after a schooner of sherry.

Dan Mall breathes life into web standards-based animation. By striving for more than just mechanical movement, we can create more believable animated effects to enhance our users’ experience.

David DeSandro breaks on through to the third dimension with an in-depth look at CSS 3-D transforms and the new opportunities they offer to web designers. Go dancing on the Z-axis this party season!

The Standardistas (Christopher Murphy and Nicklas Persson) extol the virtues of getting away from the computer and (dare we say it?) abandoning the default use of Google and Wikipedia as conduits of inspiration, in favour of simple tools and lateral thinking to grease the runners of your creative sled.

Cennydd Bowles reveals his thoughts on the important moment when we present designs to others. With thoughtful decisions and a considered approach, showing and explaining your designs can be a gift to your clients that keeps on giving.

Frances Berriman puts the sled firmly behind the reindeer with her approach to documenting feature-rich APIs. Creating good documentation needn’t be a chore and it reaps benefits – you wouldn’t expect presents at Christmas without writing your list to Santa first, would you?

Veerle Pieters tames the behemoth with her tips on getting the most out of Photoshop as a web design environment. Until Santa delivers the perfect web design application, boost your productivity with these gift-wrapped techniques.

Hannah Donovan recounts her recent retreat (with twelve other web geeks) to /dev/fort “to think up, build and finish something – without readily available internet access”. Usually there’s only one kind of cold turkey suitable around Christmas, but it paid dividends for the project’s outcome.

Scott Schiller sounds out the possibilities of HTML5 audio, listening carefully to arguments about competing formats and the quirks in current implementations. When will we hear the sleigh bells in the snow on your website?

Drew Neil spins himself like a Christmas top to bring us HTML and CSS spirals, with a golden proportioned twist. Throw in some RGBA transparency and you’ll soon be throwing shapes at the office party.

Christian Heilmann unwraps local storage, one of HTML5’s very useful new features. Speed up web services and cache frequently accessed data or even an application’s whole interface – local storage isn’t just for Christmas.

Mike Kus encourages designers to look past accepted patterns of website functionality to create meaningful experiences for users. Ditch the cookie cutter and start communicating your site’s real message.

Leslie Jensen-Inman delves into doing good: ‘Tis the season to embrace your inner superhero, set core values, and use the web to make a positive mark on the world. Get out your Underoos and capes—we’re going on an adventure.

Inayaili de León shares her Christmas CSS wish list with us: from adjusting alternative font sizes to flexible box layouts, Santa’s little helpers will be kept very busy finding it all. And what’s on your list this year?

Richard Rutter expands our horizons with a guide to using the WebFont Loader. Whether you’re happy with a FOUT (in Firefox and Opera) or want to eliminate it (like Safari, Chrome and IE), Richard shows us how to avoid inconsistent user experiences.

Drew McLellan opens our 2010 season by revisiting the way we implement maps to cater for all types of visitors. Should we be building all-or-nothing solutions when it comes to mapping, or can progressive enhancement play its part here, too?