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Articles
These articles have all been published elsewhere, whether online or in print publications. As such this does not reflect the full catalog of my writing. As I continue to publish articles, they will be added here.
- Balancing Act: Features, Budgets & Timelines
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May-14-2013
— Adrian offers insight into the decision process of building a new site for the Buffalo Soccer Club, a not-for-profit with little to no budget and a looming deadline.
- Make Your Website Printable
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Jul-18-2012
— Responsive design isn’t just about screen size; it also means adapting to
different media – including print. Adrian Roselli shares some techniques
- Why All the Food Photos?
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Jan-03-2012
— The Internet has a thing for cats. Social media, on the other hand, seems to have a thing for food. So why are food photos such a big thing and why should we care?
- Print Styles Forgotten by Responsive Web Developers
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Oct-03-2011
— Web developers and designers brag about their ability to craft designs that work across platforms using 'responsive web design.' I am surprised, however, at the utter disregard for a media format that has existed before the web — the printed page.
- The evolt.org Logo Using Only CSS2 and CSS3
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Jun-20-2011
— I set out to re-create the evolt.org logo using the bare minimum mark-up and many of the new styles available in CSS3. In addition, I wanted to make sure that the links themselves rendered fine in a text browser (mostly because I still surf in Lynx). Get a current browser and check it out.
- Making and Using QR Codes
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Mar-28-2011
— If you happened to spend any time at SxSW this year, then you probably were inundated with QR codes everywhere you looked. People were attaching them to everything — backpacks, street signs, business cards and probably even pets. This walk-through covers the basics for making your own.
- Location-Based SM Examples in the Real World
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Sep-14-2010
— Whenever I speak about social media I usually field a few questions related to the location-based social media services. The questions revolve around who is using them and why. While it's possible to see and explain the potential in these services, sometimes tangible examples are needed, and usually more than just explaining how awesome drink specials can be once you're the 'mayor' of a venue. Here are a few...
- Google Instant and SEO/SEM
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Sep-13-2010
— There's quite the potential for change that this seemingly simple user interface change could have, both on user behavior and money spent on SEM/SEO. The next few weeks may prove to be very interesting.
- UX Challenges in Touch Interfaces
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Jun-29-2010
— As mobile devices have been taking over the place of the mobile or home computer for basic apps and web access, developers are struggling with letting go of the mouse as the primary interface device.
- The Future of Check-ins
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Jun-04-2010
— After reading an article about what the future holds for the 'check-in' model of social media, I realized it (and others) weren't delving deeply enough. I toss out a few more ideas.
- Mapping Location-Based Social Media
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Apr-10-2010
— If you have been paying any attention to the social media space for the last few years, then you've watched the rise in location-based social media. Part of the appeal of these tools is seeing where you have been, almost like a travelogue for a person, as well as tracking others (friends or family). It has taken some time, but the rest of the web is finally catching up.
- Real World Hyperlinks
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Mar-08-2010
— If you've seen those odd square bar-code-looking blocks in advertisements, then you have seen the QR code, a real world hyperlink. Intended to be read by mobile devices, it's a great method to provide hyperlinks on paper.
- Lots of Twitter Followers Guarantees... Nothing
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Jan-06-2010
— What does it mean to have a huge number of Twitter followers? What does it do for you? The answer to both is: Nothing.
- Enjoying Thanksgiving with Social Media
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Nov-25-2009
— Last year I used the Brightkite wall fed to my television to let my family watch Thanksgiving updates from across the country throughout the day.
- WebAIM Screen Reader User Survey Results
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Nov-09-2009
— WebAIM conducted a survey of the preferences of screen reader users in October, gathering a lot of interesting data about how users utilize assistive technologies.
- Facebook and Google Want to Translate Your Site
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Oct-02-2009
— Google and Facebook each offer a method to translate your site, but which, if either, is the best choice?
- Google Chrome for Internet Explorer
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Sep-22-2009
— For years web developers have struggled with browsers that don't support standards or the latest innovations and that just won't go away, such as Internet Explorer. Google has taken an ingenious approach to deal with Internet Explorer 6, 7 and 8 and their general lack of standards support. It has found a way to embed Chrome right into IE.
- Corporate Social Media Policies
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Sep-21-2009
— Chris Boudreaux is the author of an upcoming book titled 'Social Media Governance.' Mr. Boudreaux has created an accompanying web site that contains a database of links to social media policies of over 80 organizations.
- Facebook Doesn't Make You Smarter, Rigorous Research Does
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Sep-08-2009
— Yesterday Mashable.com posted an article titled 'Psychologist: Facebook Makes You Smarter, Twitter Makes You Dumber.' I've seen it picked up on other news sites and blogs. And it's also completely wrong.
- Quick Color Class
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Nov-25-2002
— Because it is often necessary to reproduce the colors in identity materials when building a web page, it helps to know what to expect from the end-users' displays and ability to perceive color.
- Style Switcher in ASP
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Jun-07-2002
— As more and more sites move away from embedded style, the benefits of CSS to customize a user's visit have become all the rage. It's hard to find a site bragging about its use of XHTML and CSS for layout that doesn't have a style switcher of some sort.
- A Merger of Content Management and Localization Workflow
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May-21-2002
— Algonquin Studios and E-Merge Strategies combine business models and software products into one multilingual solution.
- The Wrong Way to Use CSS in Page Layouts
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Mar-16-2002
— Pushes for accessibility and standards in code has made CSS the new buzzword of the web developer. Unfortunately, many use WYSIWYG packages to do development. What some of these developers tend to forget is that pixel-precise layouts are anything but.
- A Simple Character Entity Chart
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Feb-14-2002
— With so many books and sites with character entity references providing the wrong entities for so long, and the W3C's version capable of making your eyes bleed, here's a much simpler chart that you can use to stress test browsers and still make sense of.
- Liquid Design for the Web
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Aug-30-2001
— With so many users and so many variables that control window size, you've got an infinite number of possible dimensions in users' browser windows. This article will address screen resolution by offering some tips and caveats for liquid design.
- To Hell with Bad Editors
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Feb-28-2001
— We're glad the WaSP and ALA took a position on old browsers. But they're preaching to the converted. Instead, let's look at what editors (human and software) can do to increase standards compliance on the web.
- Inside the evolt.org Rebuild: The HTML and CSS
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Feb-20-2001
— Since evolt.org rolled out its new design, people have been asking what we did, why we did it, and how we did it. This article addresses these questions in the context of the HTML, the CSS, and the overall site design.
- Breadcrumbs for Those Using ASP
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Dec-28-2000
— While there are many great tutorials on building a breadcrumb navigation trail using Perl on a Unix/Apache site, I thought it would be nice to have an ASP version as well. It uses the file system to generate the trail.
- Real-World Browser Size Stats, Part II
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Jul-04-2000
— In Part I of this article I showed you how to write your own script(s) to track the screen resolution, browser viewable size, and bit-depth, of your users. While you are gathering your own statistics, I'll offer mine up for review.
- Real-World Browser Size Stats, Part I
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Jul-04-2000
— Everybody has their own take on what resolution their users have. Sometimes that target resolution is based on hard data, sometimes it's a best-guess, and sometimes it's just based on the designer's own personal preferences.
- Let the User Skip the Splash Page
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Sep-05-1999
— The proliferation of splash pages on web sites has been seen by many to be a hindrance to users. Many developers forget about the extra click a user experiences just to get to information. This tutorial shows you how to control how and when it's seen.
- Browser Archive
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Aug-18-1999
— There are many places you can go on the net to see statistics about which browsers support which tags, and sometimes even how they are supported. But none of them can give the perspective of precisely how it appears to the user with that browser.
- Some Caveats with Using Frames
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Jul-27-1999
— While frames are not evil by default, there are many issues that must be considered before they are implemented on a site.
- 640 x 480 Isn't Dead Just Yet
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Jul-19-1999
— Designing for any resolution in particular can be tough. But should we cut any users? And what are the reasons for not cutting out those users? A list of reasons why addressing lower resolutions can have a higher overall impact.
- Give the User Control Over Your Fonts
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Jul-13-1999
— There's nothing quite like getting your text just right with all your CSS attributes in place, and sitting back knowing that you finally have some typographic control over your pages. It's just too bad that's not the case for your users.