webqem blog

As we find ourselves designing for more and more mobile devices these days, we’ve been keeping a very keen eye on industry leading mobile sites recently. Designing for mobile is not always straight forward, as you are working with a much smaller screen real estate, reduced functionality (no flash for Apple devices) and needing to make buttons much bigger (as finger are often fatter than the mouse cursor). It makes for quite a challenge – and it’s interesting to see most of the industry resorting to similar techniques to make sites work well and look good on mobile.

Here’s a few mobile specific trends we’ve been noticing.

Sliding Galleries

Allows to easily navigate between multiple slides and frequently offers some fancy transition effects. This is especially useful in mobile layout because on a limited space you can display multiple pictures.

Photo Backgrounds
Large photo as website’s background creates stunning visual effect. Having an overlay of content the photograph faster conveys the story and brings a really great sense of contrast.

Dual Column Navigation

The style is remarkable for having a skeleton οf navigation menu split into two columns. Such layout perfectly serves many mobile sites as all menus are housed within the scope of a mobile screen.

Horizontal Navigational PanelsThe big trend around menus is the use of large horizontal panels, which are sure to be a mainstay in mobile design. They’re space effective and can considerably facilitate fingertip content browsing as the clickable area is larger. And they just seem to mimic the UI of iOS and Android, which makes for a comfortable and familiar interface for users.

Hanging Up the Moon is a beautifully executed website which promotes a self-released, home-recorded music album by Sean Lam. While the music might not be to everyones tastes, it’s worth seeing just for it’s unique design – and well thought-out navigation and usability. We love the subtle bits of animation which really bring the site to life – all tastefully done in HTML5. Site design by Singapore based Plate Interactive (who have a pretty cool site themselves, albeit Flash).

Here is an incredibly minimal, but lovely and colourful portfolio site by Russian web designer, Alexander Zhestkov. One big long expanding page, which renders identically on mobile devices – is a incredibly simple but very effective approach. The tasteful colour palette and the small type are what make it work aesthetically, putting the viewers focus on the portfolio of work. If you dig the design, give the guy some support with some FB likes and Google +1′s.

Website for media companies usually fit into two categories – overly shiny and uninformative, or over informative and dull. We like how Diablo Media have rode a careful between the two. They’ve managed to put together a site that isn’t light on the content, but dressed up well enough that it is anything but dull. The single long page layout, crossed with a traditional horizontal navigation works well with the striking big images. The icing on the cake is the clean and modern typography.

Creative nerds of the internet have been abuzz for the last few days after the release of The Wilderness Downtown. It’s a half video clip, half HTML5 experiment for Arcade Fire’s song, We Used To Wait (link to bad YouTube bootleg)

It’s gotten an interesting response. Mostly, people that have bought into the hype of HTML5 love it and tout it as another reason why Flash is dying. However, others aren’t as impressed.

I for one, think it’s pretty great, but I don’t think it has anything to do with HTML5 or the lack of flash

It’s just the right amount of “interactive”
Halfway through the piece it asks you to write a letter to your younger self, and the interface is fun and playful and most importantly totally intuitive. This small amount of emotion and playful engagement keeps you hooked and helps you remember the experience

The use of multiple windows
This is an old trick, but still a great one. Since early JavaScript we’ve been able to do this, but the way it’s used here is pitch perfect. This is mostly because the overall experience is passive and you’re just watching. There’s a good reason why we can’t use this in ads, but I think its underused enough that its still memorable for most people when they see it in this kind of movie watching context.

The art direction is great
Not “change the world” great, or even D&AD award winning great, but defiantly “highlighted in a good portfolio” great. The grading on the video combines well with the sketchy style of the illustration. The small amount of 3d is tastefully handled if a little low resolution. Even the slight treatment to the Google maps and street-view images is great.

It makes me think of home
I ran it using my actual childhood home address, and the gimmick totally worked on my. I became that runner. I imagined myself going for a run near my old home and flashing back to my childhood. This may not be as effective for you as it was for me, and I suspect mileage may vary based on how long you lived in one home or how good the Google coverage is in that area.

The song is great
As with all music video clips, the star is the song and this is a damn great song. In fact, I love the album. You should go get it. Go on. I’ll wait.

It’s effective
I’ve been listening to the album all day, and recommending it to people. I even wrote a blog post about it.

Yes, a lot of this could have been done with flash, possibly even better. But as a creative its not the technology that impresses me, it’s the idea. Something we need to remind ourselves of continuously as the HTML5/Flash war continues.

webqem launched the new LUMIX Life: Focus on Australia website two weeks ago and submissions are already up over 1200 photos with 2 ½ months to go!

The purpose of the competition is to enter photos that have been taken with a LUMIX camera across Australia in the hopes that your photo will be selected to be in a book entitled Focus on Australia alongside other professional Australia photographers. There is also the chance to win one of three LUMIX GF-1 cameras

So pick up your LUMIX and start snapping some shots for your chance to win!

Fantastic 16 min video from TED earlier in 2009 here.

Working in the internet space means sometimes new ideas, technologies, paradigms creep upon us bit by bit and, while we ‘get it’, sometimes it can be helpful to step right back and put things in context.

This talk certainly does that, placing SM within the context of the history of human communication and punching home its significance…

http://www.ted.com/talks/clay_shirky_how_cellphones_twitter_facebook_can_make_history.html

This year webqem’s network engineer Derek Read and his wife are taking part in the Leukaemia Foundation’s World’s Greatest Shave. (Derek is going Kojak and Marianne is going for the coloured set). It’s easy to take part – simply ask family, friends or workmates to sponsor you, then shave (or colour) your hair in March.

Every hour of every day, at least one person in Australia is diagnosed with leukaemia, lymphoma or myeloma.
Every two hours, someone loses their life to blood cancer.

Please help Derek and Marianne raise as much as they can for the Leukaemia Foundation. Their vital work provides patients with practical support during their long and tough treatment, as well as funding important research.

You can help by making a secure online donation using your credit card at their profile page.

True Green Kids … 100 Things You Can Do to Save the Planet by Kim McKay and Jenny Bonnin, has won the award for Best Hands On Science Book at the AAAS/Subaru SB&F Excellence in Science Books awards, celebrating outstanding science writing and illustration for children and young adults.

The award will be presented in Chicago on Friday 13th February. It is one of four book prizes awarded by the AAAS (American Association for the Advancement of Science), the publisher of Science Magazine, and the SB&F (Science Books and Films).

True Green is an international environmental brand which aims to empower the everyday person to make a difference. The authors are part of the Clean up Australia/Clean up the World team (Kim is cofounder and Jenny is a board member). Kim and Jenny have written four True Green books, all about providing simple and useful actions you can take to change your behavior, presenting the tips in a very accessible way.

The True Green Kids book was launched in Australia by Environment Minister Peter Garrett last April and covers 100 points, from the obvious (use cloth bags and turn down the heat), to the creative and fun (set up a local carbon trading card system or help organize a ‘trash’ free lunch day at school).

webqem worked with the authors to produce the True Green @ Work E-Learning Program, using Adobe Flash and Adobe Presenter.

http://usc.edu.au/University/MediaPublications/News/MoreNews/GayleBeijing.htm

University of the Sunshine Coast business lecturer Gayle Mayes used Adobe Connect to bring the Beijing Olympics into her classroom.

Ms Mayes spent two weeks in Beijing for the Olympic Games, and organised live video links with her Sport and Event Marketing classes during their scheduled lecture times, covering the sports marketing topics discussed in her University classes.

Issues included ticket prices, politics and sport, drugs in sport, security, the cultural, economic, political and environmental impacts of mega events, and the challenges of marketing and managing an international event in China.

Ms Mayes uses experiential education as her main teaching strategy. This approach last year earned her a $10,000 grant from the Carrick Institute for Learning and Teaching in Higher Education.

A few of us have decided to get involved in this great event, by growing a mo for the month of November. Movember aims to raise awareness about male health issues, in particular prostate cancer and male depression, by encouraging guys to let their mo’s grow for a month. We’ll keep you updated on our progress, a few radical concepts for individual mo’s have been thrown around but let’s let the mo’s do the talking!

Movember donations are tax deductible and can be made at http://www.movember.com.au/ or 1300 GROW MO.

Go the mo!

Ikea has launched a fun new mini-site to promote their wardrobes. Like a remarkable kitchen mini-site they had created earlier which rotated through different kitchen scenes frozen in time, this new site is another engaging experience built in Flash.

A set of five well-appointed rooms, stacked one on top of each other, are visited by choosing levels from a set of elevator buttons, giving you a voyeur’s view of rooms as you pass up and down on your way to your destination.

The site makes good use of Flash video with people coming and going into the rooms, leading the viewer into the features currently being displayed.

IKEA: Kom In I Garderoben