benwatts.ca » lessons http://www.benwatts.ca The crazy ramblings of designer/web developer Ben Watts. Sat, 02 Jan 2010 22:31:52 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.1-alpha The Death of Me: Content in Mockups http://www.benwatts.ca/2009/06/29/the-death-of-me-content-in-mockups/ http://www.benwatts.ca/2009/06/29/the-death-of-me-content-in-mockups/#comments Tue, 30 Jun 2009 01:36:21 +0000 Ben http://www.benwatts.ca/?p=482 Situation: you’re briefed on a site redesign project, existing content is being used.

Up until today I thought being able to use existing concept in a mockup was kind of like winning a contest; having french and english content at the onset of a design is more akin to winning a lottery. It’s much more satisfying to design with real content because it provides a constraint to a design problem; the more that’s known about a problem, the easier it may be to solve. At the very least the solution may be more creative.

Obviously as a designer you’ve got to create a design that is flexible to support varying conditions, particularly if a site is bilingual. At some point seeking to control every scenario that may arise will result in a compromise in design integrity.

With that being said, I learned a very valuable lesson today which completely turns me off of the idea of using real content. It’s a situation where the client becomes so caught up in the content you’ve chosen that it literally skews their entire view of the design.

That was a disconnect I didn’t foresee. Balls.

]]> http://www.benwatts.ca/2009/06/29/the-death-of-me-content-in-mockups/feed/ 0 Lessons Learned http://www.benwatts.ca/2007/04/10/lessons-learned/ http://www.benwatts.ca/2007/04/10/lessons-learned/#comments Tue, 10 Apr 2007 14:50:23 +0000 Ben http://benwatts.ca/blog/?p=6 The interesting lessons I've learned from being accepted into CSS Galleries. From the first-impression to the rippers.

]]> I was recently accepted into a few CSS Galleries, which is really awesome and insightful! Checking over the stats I’ve gained some new insights into how people are visiting the site. I suppose it would be wrong to take the following information and apply it to your site, but regardless, I’ve noticed a few things:

  1. Glorious Hits! The incoming hits are awesome! It gives one a tremendous sense of accomplishment to know that people are actually visiting your site. However, first impressions are everything, and it seems most people get to the homepage and flee the site. That’s not to say that’s the case for everyone, but by the looks of it — that’s the behaviour of the majority.
  2. Ripped, already? Seriously the site has been up for about 9 days now — in galleries for about 1 day — and it has been ripped. Le sigh. On one hand I’m sort of flattered; of all the sites on the Internet, mine was chosen to be copied? On the other hand – hey — I put the time and effort into this site — so duplicating it elsewhere is kind of cheap and not too creative, eh? I don’t mind you learning from my site, but you have to think: if you’re uploading it somewhere — with most of the site still linking back to mine (and the copyright notice still in tact) you’ve got to wonder …
    I’ve attempted to contact the site owner, so I’ll wait for his side of the story before jumping to conclusions. Still … not cool dude, not cool.

You can find the site at: prowebart.net, csstux.com, lightondark.com, screenaliciou.us, mostinspired, dailyslurp, csscontainer. Thanks for the hits :D

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