Drawar

hahaha, sorry for the name mixup! I was in a rush to write that!

I get where you're coming from, Oli. I think we're a long way off from WYSIWYG editors doing a good enough job, though. Looking at the code that's produced by Dreamweaver CS3, which I think is pretty advanced, at an Adobe conference last year, I was pretty disgusted. It will be a long time before WYSIWYG editors can differentiate well and consistently between stylized texts, detail elements and header tags, which are so vital for anyone reading without CSS on (mobile, in many cases or screenreaders, not to mention search bots).

Currently, with tools like that, people can make a website. That's been happening since Frontpage. The problem is that I think they're rarely good sites and won't get those people as far as one that was developed properly. Also, with the constant drive for sites to become more interactive, developers are needed for things like that, as that's usually beyond designers' capacity.

An interesting thing on the side, I'd say, is how people are perceived. I think developers are generally better regarded (in terms of their work) than designers. There are still a lot of people out there who think bright red looks awesome on purple backgrounds, and so they don't think designers have to work hard to create good things. Meanwhile, I think there are more people who know they don't understand how to create complex, database-driven systems, and so feel developers are pretty valuable and savvy folks.

I've especially seen this since living with my boyfriend, who's a web developer; I think he gets a lot more respect for his work than I do. I have to go on and on with clients about the most basic things, because they often think they know at least a little about design, whereas they know they are at a loss when it comes to programming. There is the occasional client that's a know-it-all to us both, and there are some like that to developers, but I think designers get that more, which is annoying for me.

Anyone else encountered that?

lol dubsar

I think Nils and Ollie have it mostly right, but I disagree with the idea that developers can't learn to be creative. It's merely a matter of if they want to be. If they want to be, they most certainly can learn how (Or did all of us designers start out with perfect graphic design? It's not a stagnant you "either know it or you don't" sort of thing.); there are some pretty solid rules in design, too, which would cater quite well to a more analytical person's initial learning.

I also disagree that developers need designers more, as an offshoot of what I was saying before; I think we need each other pretty equally and will for some time to come. If we're going to generalize, we might also do so by saying that designers are creative, therefore, they're not as likely to find the logic-based rules of more complex programming languages as easily understandable to their right-brained thinking, so they'll need developers to do that for them. Mind you, I think this is where most of us begin (and sometimes stay and continue with), in what we naturally understand and probably enjoy.

I'm a geek. If a client is complaining about that, just imagine how much he'd complain about a web designer who WASN'T. He'd get totally shitty results!

It's probably more like the design company that GC hired ripped that other company's design. Bad situation.

Many physicists believe in a higher intelligens behind creation.

Who are the major ones that publicly state that? Around 40 percent of American scientists seem to believe in some form of a higher power (source), according to one study, but that's a lower percentage than is found in the rest of the population (in speaking of the case of the US only, of course).

For me it's a matter of logic as nothing can be created from nothing.

This goes back to what I was saying before, I think. There was a time when logic meant you believed your pharaoh was your god, that the earth was flat or that the sun revolved around our planet. I'm not suggesting that things can be created from nothing, but I am suggesting we do not know enough to say one thing or another about some origins of life. We simply do not have such knowledge at this point in time. Our logic may very well be faulty, which does not make it logic at all. Without definitive evidence, it seems premature (to me) to come to conclusions.

Parapsychology is a field of research under the same guidelines as other science.

It's a field of science that's meant to follow the same guidelines as others sciences, but it is criticized by many for not doing so. Wiki has just a small sample of some of the criticism and arguments against the field, and I don't think we should take things like fraud too lightly when we're saying whether things are factual or not, based on this form of science.

Why do you conclude that James Van Praagh does cold reading? Isn't that based on an assumption? As you don't know for sure it could very easily be true, from a scientific standpoint, right? Have you seen any of his work?

The name sounded familiar to me, so I did a search on him, found some videos. I'm pretty sure I've seen a documentary concerning his work. Here's one.

To me, these are parlor tricks. (For those interested, there is a part two video of that.)

This is what I mean with a circular ring of proof. What is now under scrutiny in Physics, no matter if it's the standard model, M theory, String theory, or another theory, is the question; "what keeps it together?"....This then makes it logical to assume the existence of a higher dimension.

String theory always interested me, but I can't say I've looked at any news about it in ages now. However, it is a study in progress, so again, I'm personally wary of making assumptions until more is known. Considering the topic is such a big (and old) one, the origin of existence, I don't want to jump the gun on believing something that is possibly untrue, just for the comfort of having an answer.

True. Religion have a lot of symbolsim that I see as interesting and truthful, but we must accept scientific facts. The world wasn't created in 7 days :-)

I don't think it was either! Yet, at the same time, I can't 100 percent prove that to someone who believes it was, even with all the evidence of the earth being old and forming/evolving slowly over massive amounts of time. Likewise, it is hard to prove/disprove any other belief regarding our initial existence, because we are talking about times in which none of us existed (of course).

Interesting conversation we've had going here. :)

Research in Physics, in Consciousness, in Parapsychology, and people like James van Praagh who claims to have contact with the other side, and my own experience of dreaming true dreams.

Physics is one thing. Parapsychology, a much-debated science (or not) is another, and James Van Praagh is like most of the John Edward types, don't you think? They're cold readers who are vague. For instance, everything you have told us here, about your desire to build this, most of us could give you a cold reading now. "I've seen something creative in your future, a huge development on your part. It will utilize both mind and spirit." It's not hard. We're pattern-seeking creatures, and we fill in the holes that the cold readers leave behind, I think.

As for dreaming true dreams or deja vu, there are a number of logical theories regarding these issues. I think dreams can help you understand underlying problems at times, but that is only through logical self-reflection. One must also be careful to confuse the idea that a dream is true if we are, in fact, making it a self-realized prophecy, carrying it out ourselves after having thought of it in a dream.

When you put all the facts next to each other I must say that the logic somehow gets lost when you totally deny the possibility of a higher reality.

An argument's conclusions cannot be true if its premises are false, so I'm not sure logic is "lost" if one is skeptical of how reliable research in parapsychology and feelings is.

Again, not to hijack your thread, and I hope I don't come off as belligerent, considering these are your personal beliefs and you have every right to believe however. :) (I just find religious discussions interesting!) I like to know why people believe the things they do. I was brought up in a Christian household, but its concepts just did not stand to reason, and I'm much happier having left that behind me. I don't find many beliefs can stand the heat of science, particularly when the science is being carried out by those who don't believe it prior to conducting the experiments. Many seem to often take note of singular and/or personal experiences that have been passed around via word of mouth (or the media) and superimpose those onto ideas of creation, as if somehow that is proof. In real science you need your results to come from experiments carried out with proper control and experimental groups.

Any system needs an operator.

Well, I can't argue with you there, because there is no solid knowledge concerning the absolute origin of life (i.e., where the matter came from in the first place). This is the only reason I am agnostic and not an atheist. Yet, I can say that most all definitive research suggests that there is no operator and that, if there is, we can consider our relation to it similar to the ideas that are in Deism. (In other words, we were created, but the creator takes no part in our creation beyond that point.)

Within our realm of understanding, every system needs an operator. However, many things are outside of our realm of understanding--in the same way that we once thought (and taught each other) that the earth was flat or that a pharaoh was god--and so I don't know that we can say, without doubt, that things cannot exist without being intelligently designed. I think the jury's still out on that.

I believe what you describe already exists, though, in any good user experience design. It is the designers job to find what suits the identity of the company. Sometimes this is easy, and sometimes it isn't, but the goal is the same of what you speak of: to create a design that fits the corporation's identity, speaks well to its client base and is accessible/usable. I think the tools for this already exists, too, in the way designers build the architecture and visual designs of websites.

Oh, and not to hijack this topic or anything, but...

I recently learned about Intelligent Design, and found it to be much what I believe in. But not the dogmatic part that I find very typical for the US. I believe in science. I also believe that we soon will have scientific proof of a higher logic. Many don't realize how far science have come.

Being someone who's pretty interested in science, particularly new discoveries, I haven't seen much in support of any sort of ID. In fact, most of what I see refutes that, such as our studies of galaxies outside our own, as well as the studies we do on our own planet. I'm agnostic, by the way, so I'm open to other ideas, but only if they have sound reasoning. What have you been reading lately or in the past that leads you to believe there is some higher power? And what makes you think that we are close to discovering it? How do you measure such a thing?

What Physicist all seem to say now is that; "there must be something going through us in an invisible way explaining the particles and the nature of the quantum world and why it's all kept together, as we have learned about it so far". These are my own words, but I don't think it's completely wrong. Anyway, you see my point. There isn't that much difference anymore between what science says and what esoteric sources says. Both conclude that there is something "holding" all pieces together.

Oh God, is this an Intelligent Design theory?

I have to admit that this concept isn't a very clear one to me. It seems like it could very well encourage unusable designs. Not everyone's personality encourages good designs, thus the reason we have designers, no? :B

From your website:

DesignGenetics is a systematization of the elements in design and its correlation to behavior and personality. The nature of design and behavior only makes sense with a horizontal, transparent, and omnipresent layer of intelligent energy.....Understanding these aspects will help you to become aware of the spectrum of polarity and the point of balance. In this sense it's a Practical Guide To Tao.

I just don't get it. I don't mean to offend here, but this seems like a clearly emotive thing to me, along the lines of palm reading. "Your personality says you like green designs," is what I'm sort of getting from this, and that seems far too simple and weird.

You're using words in your work like "oneness" and "design ecosystems," etc., which just scream emotive marketing jargon to me. What does Design Genetics actually do?

If you're wanting to excite people about an idea or product, you're going to have to use language that everyone will understand, particularly clients without prior knowledge of some of the things you're talking about. I think this is particularly important for you, because I'm no Internet n00b, and yet I am not aware at all of what you are trying to achieve, unfortunately!

There are some places/walls that are specifically allotted for legal graffiti. :) Here's a site about it. I think Denmark was the country that started creating areas and walls for legal graffiti, though I'm not sure.

Apparently Melbourne, where I am in Australia, is home to some of the largest amounts of graffiti in the world. However, most all of it is supposedly not related to gang activity, which is pretty interesting. Anyway, I agree with Auburn and Ollie, that it all has to do with the context.

My boyfriend and I, both pretty staunch Libertarians politically, have discussed this a few times, because while we think graffiti can be an enjoyable public art show, we also believe in people's property rights, in which case even art isn't always desired. If it's your business getting tagged, you don't necessarily even want a work of art sprayed onto the side of your building; you just want your building to "look like it should."

So while we quibble over the context, I have to wonder if that even matters to a majority of the people who have it happen to their personal, private properties. I'm not sure I'd be able to accept a work of art put onto the side of my home/business, without someone asking me for permission first. That seems like vandalism, no matter what, really.

Tough to come to a proper conclusion.

Try...


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Ordering by name works in post queries. Probably an easier way, even.

Only on Saturdays, between 2 and 3pm.

Actually, no. Not at all.

Breasts are not anymore inherently sexual than any other body part (see foot fetishes). It is entirely how one looks at them. If it were the breasts themselves that caused arousal, no matter context, you'd have a lot more boys with Oedipus complexes. Perhaps your service provider is going through a personal crisis.

I just don't get it. Outside of some extra fat and some extra reproductive functionality, a woman's chest is exactly the same as a man's. One should be able to see it in art, at the beach and on a hot day where it warrants the taking off of a shirt.

Tell your ISP to crawl out of the Victorian Era. The Internet doesn't function well there.

For those interested, I'm in a new media course, and my textbook for that class (New Media by Terry Flew) discusses this in its first chapter. Flew writes:

The core principles of software programs and Internet sites that conform to Web 2.0 principles are that they are:

- many-to-many in their connectivity

- decentralised in terms of control

- user-focused and easy for new users to use

- open in terms of their technology standards and their Applications Programming Interface (API)

- relatively simple and "lightweight" in their design, their administrative requirements and their start-up and ongoing development costs

- expected to evolve and change over time, as users make new modifications to the sites

Of course, Flew goes on to discuss that there are many others, like Ozone, that argue there is not even anything to debate here, because web 2.0 is not a tangible, existing thing, particularly because the web is so quick to evolve (or devolve).

I think it's just a misnomer. Rather than calling a site unique, easy-to-use and transparent, some have chosen to identify recent years' waves of new, quality (or sometimes lack thereof) sites as being the "next level" of the Internet. The problem is that there's no general consensus of what a web 2.0 site is. Is it Flickr? Is it MySpace? (If so, that means standards are out the window.) Is it Amazon? Is it a blog? Is it bright colors, minimalist design and big text, or do those things have nothing to do with it?

If one is to take Flew's bullet points as a possibility, I think it's quite obvious that there have been many sites in the past that have adhered to at least two or more of the principles. Equally obvious would be the fact that many sites today don't adhere to those principles.

So, to me, what's left is the idea that it is a misnomer, because it can't reliably identify what exists online today. It is, however, a term that marketers could easily run with, and have. I've seen a number of sites in the last year or so where people posted jobs that were titled things like "web 2.0 design required" or "web 2.0 site needed."

That hasn't occurred because it is a concept that requires intense technical and business-wise adherence to a set of good principles. That's occurred because people have gotten starry-eyed with some get-rich-quick scheme they recently read about in a book or online.

Perhaps the question is wrong here. What do you actually think Web 2.0 looks like? There are some definitions, but many are pretty arbitrary outside of declaring there is a greater importance put in standards compliance and ease of use.

Maybe the question should be How much money will marketers spend trying to get you to buy into another arbitrary idea in a few years' time?

I think we're in 2.5.4.3. Oh, and it's beta, of course.

Is it necessary to have constant leaders in design? I can't say I've ever followed anyone with any dedication, not even Smashing Magazine, which I think is pretty cool.

I wrote a nice love note and taped it to the mirror for him to see in the morning. Of course, I tape love notes to places all the time for him. We did dinner and a movie. :)

I might be interested. What is your budget like? I typically charge $25USD an hour for work. If you want, you can email me more information about your project at leliathomas@gmail.com.

Ah, technical jargon.

He could be much more concise by saying he likes the way the web is going and sees a very bright future for it as it integrates more into our lives and societies.

Same thing, minus buzz words.

622 views.

That should be in the loop, by the way.

Hi, cooper, try this...

Put that in the index.php file. That's what I use on my site.

Flinders Street Station, Melbourne, Australia.

Palatino Linotype for serif; for sans-serif, it really just depends on the project.

This is called attention seeking.

Thanks for answering, guys. :) I think it's interesting that most of us--myself included--change our planning according to the medium. Are there any studies about that? Because usually people just paint others with one brush, saying they're either organized or unorganized.

Oh? Are we ditching the light background? That's my problem with the grey. As another said, there's not much contrast between it and the background.

Or are you saying 9rules is going to break in other browsers? :P

I like it, but it hurts my eyes. It's the grey. Nor am I fan of the changing design from one navigational area to another. Some people love that, but I am really not one of them. It drives me crazy.

The menu breaks in IE6, too, and the design is no longer centered.

And did anyone view this without the page styling on? It'll probably do well for bots tooling through, but as some others mentioned, the usability issues...

I think I would have a closer look at your choice of grey. It is a bit busy for the eyes, because it is a middle-toned grey around (and surrounded by) bright colours. It sort of clashes. I would either go lighter or darker on it. (See image below.)

EDIT: Just realized that it didn't load correctly for me in Firefox, so that screencap will look a bit weird! But I think my point still stands, perhaps even more so now that I've seen the full design.

Did you use Dreamweaver to create this? The naming of the divs is a bit odd.

Yeah. :| They so don't know my mother.

It is! It has a great community that, yes, is rooted in Melbourne, where I am, but it's also open to (and printing and shipping products) all around the world. It's so much more open, and when they say they're going to release or do something, they do. That's a breath of fresh air.

They're always holding competitions with truly awesome prizes (I think this comes from the fact that they're funded--from what I understand--by one of the main media companies in Australia), and they've got a ton of features that deviantART has been promising for years. That's pretty amazing for a site that's so young. (I think it's been open to the public for less than a year.) They already have Groups; you will realize the significance of that, Lorri!

I think deviantART takes advantage of its users these days, and that's what I wrote about when I left. In contrast, I am loving RedBubble.

"Web 2.0" can't neglect anything, because it's just an "era" of the Internet. People behind the websites can do a bloody good job of botching things up, though, and that was true for the past, is true for now and will be true in the future.