1. Bio
  2. Blog
  3. Articles
    1. Lots of Twitter Followers Guarantees... Nothing
    2. Enjoying Thanksgiving with Social Media
    3. WebAIM Screen Reader User Survey Results
    4. Facebook and Google Want to Translate Your Site
    5. Google Chrome for Internet Explorer
    6. Corporate Social Media Policies
    7. Facebook Doesn't Make You Smarter, Rigorous Research Does
    8. Quick Color Class
    9. Style Switcher in ASP
    10. A Merger of Content Management and Localization Workflow
    11. 13 more items...
  4. Books
    1. Usability: The Site Speaks for Itself
    2. Cascading Style Sheets
    3. Web Graphics for Non-Designers
    4. The Web Professional's Handbook
    5. Constructing Usable Shopping Carts
  5. Contact

Home :: Articles

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.

Lots of Twitter Followers Guarantees... Nothing
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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.