Gradualism

Slider / scrubber control on iPod Touch or iPhone music player has disappeared!

June 24th 2009

Just a quick note incase you (too) find that the player control slide or "scrubber" bar on your iTouch/iPhone music player has disappeared, it ain't broke, it's just hiding! 

I was so excited about the added feature in the 3.0 Software release that allows you to skip back 30 seconds in a track - especially useful when listening to a podcast and you get interupted - but then suddenly it wasn't there. I was half way through a Boagworld podcast when I accidentally hit the skip button. Without the scrubber bar I (thought I) was looking at listening to 30mins all over again (when in fact if you hold down the skip button it does fast forward through the track you are on - another thing I learnt following the link below).

Turns out you have to tap the album cover/artwork to show/hide the scrubber bar. More info about the additional music controls can be found on the Apple site.

Interest and yes, inspiration! at the Future of Web Design conference

May 20th 2009

Having caught my attention with the inclusion of an Expression Engine workshop presented by none other than Jamie Pittock of Erskine Design (one of the first UK companies to use EE on high profile client work), I decided to treat myself to a ticket to the 2 day extravangza that is the Future of Web Design conference and workshops.

I am aware that there has been quite a lot of criticism of FOWD this year that it wasn't forward looking enough, too much retrospection and not enough looking at cutting edge technology of the future. In some way I have to agree as you'll see something of this sentiment in my comments on the design presentations. However, in the process of writing these notes and reviewing the experience as a whole, I've realised just how much inspiration there was to be gained from many of the speakers. And I know I've already referred to all the meeting people and socialising there is to be done in an earlier post, but I can't emphasise enough how important this is to the whole day. So perhaps it shouldn't be called "Future of Web Design" but I'm not going to argue over the name: I went to see a selection of presentations about web design and related topics and that is what I got, and they weren't all bad—as you'll see from this lengthy article—there was plenty to take note of.

Talks at web design conferences seem to fall into one of four categories (though inevitably there is overlap), so I thought this might be a good way to organise my notes. The categories are: creativity, business management, design, technical. There's probably other ways I could categorise them but for the sake of having some organising structure I'm going to go with these.

Read the full article

Why to go and what to do at a web design conference

May 10th 2009

I attended the Future of Web Design conference for the 2nd time last week, I first went in 2007 and since then I've been to the @media conference twice and dConstruct once as well.  During this time I've learnt a few things about how to make the most of the experience, based on these key points:

• Be there
• Book early
• Choose carefully
• Talk to other attendees (and not just your colleagues!)
• Do talk to presenters, they want to meet people too
• Have questions or comments prepared to ask/share with someone you would like to meet
• Have the right appropriate expectations
• Go to the pre + after parties

Read the full article

Testing, testing, 1, 2, 3

May 10th 2009

"What's with the name?"

I bought the gradualism domain name in 2007 in order to set up an online home to gather my thoughts about working in the world of web design.  It is now 2009 and I am only just putting this blog live (it has been a single page 'life-stream' up until now) so I think that is enough to explain why I chose the name!  I run a small web design business and find it incredibly hard to set aside the time for non-client work like this. I'm hoping to change that, starting now. 

This is a test.

So this website is intentionally (or by necessity) minimal right now. The visual design has yet to really be considered - this nice minimal stylesheet was for the most part whipped up by my partner one morning last week. I decided that before I invest a whole bunch of time designing a lovely looking blog, I want to see if I have the content to sustain it. 

[...] changes occur, or ought to occur, slowly in the form of gradual steps [...]

If I can keep putting blog posts out (and if anyone is reading them) I will look at making this look a lot prettier. Maybe. (It might take another 2 years to get around to it). But hey - noone actually visits blogs anymore do they? We're all just reading on our feed readers, right?