This site was demo’d at the MIX11 conference showcasing the capabilities of HTML5 video, canvas and Silverlight, all working in perfect harmony in the super fast IE9 browser.

Check this page out for the ability to flick between multiple camera angles in the same video footage. This is interesting, as I haven’t seen this before. Wasn’t this the reason for buying a DVD player though? Whatever happened to that feature in DVD’s?

I tried to hop around the talks to a variety of topics some of direct interest to my role in Marker and some quite new or challenging. First talk of the day was given by Peter McLennan. He was talking about his passion for designing and collecting Vinyl covers. This was a great way to ease myself into the day as within my comfort zone of anything designy or arty and I found the way he chose to group designs interesting some by designers, some by labels, some by genres and so on as each grouping showed ways that trends occurred and a hidden label language was created.

Next up was by the young name behind the event Ludwig Wendzich (I figured it would be plain rude not to see the founder speak atleast once). He talked about the way you can rethink the UI experience of sites for topics like magazines using the new movement recognising technology. How using this natural motion that is directly connected to what is seen on screen is more instinctual than the third party use of a keyboard or mouse driven command. I especially liked the idea of this type of technique making the web more accessible for the really young or old, eradicating the old analogy of the remote control being too fiddly/small/complicated debate.

Adbreak here, I have to say the food alone is reason to come as we had everything from healthy fruit to scones with cream and jam, carrot cake, M&Ms and brownies to lasagna and salad. I have to say the best spread at a conference I have ever eaten – beats the bain-marie slop often had at the hotel based ones. The t-shirts were also a great design and very wearable once you upped your size x 2 as the fit was extremely small for the ladies.

Then I enjoyed some healthy debate about the future of Digital TV in NZ with Steven Ellis at the helm.

Usability was next on the cards from a one month kiwi Haunani Pao (A new inductee from San Fran) whose breakdown on what and why we have this thing called usability provided me with lots of great ways to help sell the benefits to clients. Particularly liked her picture representation of why with the beautiful red jug that although on the surface looked great due to the spout and handle being on the same side was rendered useless.

Then hands down my favourite discussion of the day from Mike Dickison who presented from his academic point of view what the roadblocks to getting Wikipedia into mainstream use in Universities were and his ideas on ways to rid them. I loved his suggestion of replacing or supplementing the essay form of testing to making the students actually publish their research as a wiki page and leave it open for public debate as opposed to the one person critique of the lecturer. I also appreciated his emphasizing the need for a mind-shift from research only to more focus on critique of the said research sources.

Then we landed in the world of Science Fiction for an analysis of leadership in today’s working environments. Corporate being similar to Star Trek, Independent to Doctor Who and Start-up to Firefly. It was a fabulous way to make concepts which are sometimes quite abstract really tangible. Can’t wait to read the book once its out.

My last talk for the day was by my colleague Darren Wood who I love to hear speak as his passion for his craft is always so evident in his presentations and the reduction of code and new way of adopting the flexibility of new working styles in HTML5 was really interesting I appreciated the fact that even at code level they had recognised the need for people to show their individual flair. He was partnered by Matthew Buchanan who I am also a bit of a fan of via his blog as he has a knack for hunting out great design on the web. His brief demo on the possibilities for rendering what was once image based only solutions now being done with CSS was simultaneously exciting and scary as can see the ever faster shift to the blurring of art and science and wonder when the science will become too hard for the artist to use and as such render them handicapped and the world of the web into many an un-designy hand. I am a fan of the pretty picture after all.

Overall I was really impressed by the entire day and will be back if I can secure a spot next year.

About a year ago (yep, not much more it seems) it was decided to completely re-write the underlying mobile OS and the application development stack and services on top. A brave but necessary move given the free falling market share numbers we’re seeing on the current windows mobile interaction.

To be fair the HTC HD2 device running windows mobile 6.5 is actually pretty good, pretty great even, and supports all the features one would expect from a modern smartphone. It does however have a limited app store behind it and also contains rather dated UI remnants built around the classic windows desktop visual metaphors that consumer users in particular appear to have long abandoned.

Windows Phone 7 Design

Well, if any of you have gotten your hands on a Zune HD, you will undoubtedly appreciate the good looks and flow of what is essentially the core of the Metro design UI. It feels good on the Zune HD, and it looks strange, weird, different but dare i say it ground breaking in the videos and demos I have seen for Windows Phone.

The concept of ‘hubs’ within the phone allows for interesting ideas, like all your turns appearing in the games section together and all photo and video updates to aggregate from photo and video applications. This creates a cohesiveness and sense of place that you don’t get on other smart phones. I have a feeling there is some additional complexity for the user in the hub concept but this will trade off against the bond the hubs will create with the user over time.

Windows Phone 7 Development

Microsoft have killed it here. Silverlight for apps, XNA for games. Visual Studio/.Net and and easy debug and deploy model. Having worked with the Apple development model it looks hugely more productive to be building mobile apps for Windows Phone than iPhone. Of course until the device reach is out it won’t necessarily be more profitable, but certainly Microsoft have done everything right for .Net developers here so far.

The game story is also compelling. A significant majority of casual games on Xbox are built with XNA and that means porting them to Windows Phone is a breeze. I think we’ll see the game studios be able to quickly port and announce Windows Phone games as part of their standard development cycles without the major overhead that must come with platform ports like to iPhone. In addition, the integration of XBox Live services and shared game state across mobile, PC and Xbox provides what I believe to be one of the killer features in the whole offering. Microsoft needs to focus on leveraging the areas where it is ahead like the XBox and allow that to help it catch up in areas where it is sorely lagging like Music and Applications.

Windows Phone 7 Marketplace

We haven’t really had much detail here to be yet. It looks very similar to the Apple App Store, with the new feature of trial before buy which appears to work in a standard shareware type way which can be defined by the application developer 30 days, 30 tries etc.). However there doesn’t appear to be any ability to have in app purchases as recently announced by Apple which is a shame.

The approval process looks identical to Apple’s in principle, although Microsoft have promised to remain open and transparent and be quicker than Apple  in approving applications sent to the Marketplace.

Windows Phone 7 Hardware, OS and Updates

Microsoft has prescribed pretty tight specifications for hardware partners producing phones. A 5MP with flash camera is required, 3 hardware buttons (back, home and search), 1GHz cpu minimum and optional keyboard amongst other things. In addition there are 2 core resolutions a larger 800 * 480 resolution which will be in the devices shipped on day one and a smaller 480 x 320 resolution for second wave devices. The aspect ratios are close but not identical meaning application developers will need to be aware of this, unlike with the iPhone. Of course it makes sense to maximise the potential reach of the phones but from a development perspective I do worry about this a little as it creates that additional complexity in testing applications.

There is no news on whether or not the devices can support both front and back facing cameras or not, i’m assuming not, but this would be required obviously for video conferencing support.

The OS contains a modified version of IE7 as the core web browser and you can read more about that here: http://www.networkworld.com/community/node/58638

The OS is completely rebuilt, and appears to have been taken from Zune OS at least in part. A lot of elements like Deep Zoom are built right into the OS so they are going to be super quick and hardware acceleration plays a big part in this.

Multitasking appears similar to current iPhone OS with Push Notification apis supported only.

Syncing is awesome and automatic using the Zune syncing technology. Wireless syncing is now enabled and ActiveSync no longer required.

Updates to the phone will be done in a similar fashion to Zune. All phones will be able to receive updates which seems to me a much better model than for Android which appears to have a fragmentation issue with releasing new versions and updates in a more haphazard way.

Windows Phone 7 – What’s missing?

Here’s a couple of interesting features that may not make it into the final RTM.

• Copy and Paste – Confirmed!
• Video Capture within applications – Not confirmed but suspected

In Summary

Will we love it as much as we love our iPhones…? well that’s a really big wait and see!

Overall i grade Microsoft an 8/10 so far on their 2010 comeback trail. This is an exciting new start for Microsoft in mobile, but end of 2010 is when we’ll really know how the fight is shaping up.

For more….

http://www.windowsphone7series.com/

If you are interested to learn more or have any questions please drop me an email at keith.p@markerstudio.com

What would you prefer me to do? Spend my time hacking around issues in older technologies like Internet Explorer 6 or would you like that time spent making the site look the best that it can on better desktop browsers, as well as on the iPhone, iPod Touch, iPad, Blackberry and a whole host of other mobile devices?

— Andy Clarke makes a very interesting point.

There were 12 speakers from NZ, Australia, USA and the UK. All masters of their own disciplines. Each lecture seemed to follow a similar system:

1. what their interests and dreams were as a kid
2. What items they obsessively collected
3. What role education in all its forms has played in their careers
4. The flow on effect and giving back
5. Sticking to what you are passionate about and making the commercial work fit with these ideals
6. how to keep the drawer of shame to a minimum

My favorite speakers for the day were: Duke Stump, Harry Pearce, Kate Moross, Alexia Sinclair, James Jean and David Carson.

I liked these speakers over the others because they spoke more about the future, the idea of collaboration and giving back to the world. They were also all very driven in their own style and passion and let that shape the work rather than allowing the client or work to shape them. This approach meant the work was actually better and the client much happier.

Two statements said during the day really resonated with me one. The first “If money wasn’t an issue would you be doing the work you do” and the other was “as creative people we are very privileged in the sense our voices and output often has the opportunity to effect greater change so use this privilege to help make the world a better place”.

Overall came away very inspired and with a nice reminder of the bigger picture (we all know how easy it is to get lost in the details!).

For more info http://www.semipermanent.com/newzealand/

The original creator of the World Wide Web, Tim Berners-Lee, dreamed of an information space that was open to everyone on the planet. But like many dreams, imagination took over and the vision became layered with roadblocks that effectively brought down the shutters for many users.

Accessibility returns to that original vision – to make web content readable and comprehensible for everyone, regardless of ability.

I liken “accessibility” to installing a wheelchair ramp in your building, or to traffic lights that buzz when it’s safe for pedestrians to cross the road.

No barriers to entry, please

Vision impairment, or any physical disability that prevents a person from using a mouse, should not be a barrier to your content.

In fact, it is illegal to launch a website that cannot be accessed by everyone – as a recent US lawsuit revealed. Web developers are on to it. Marketers need to be on to it, too.

Accessibility is as important as any other aspect of web development. As a web developer, I need to bear in mind that people who cannot see or use a mouse will be using this website and it is my job to ensure that they can.

Does your website play nice with screen readers?

The first step is to avoid the gratuitous use of images. An image-heavy website locks up content from screen readers, slows the downloading of your pages, and lowers the potential for high search engine rankings.

Not only do people need to be able to read the text within your images, screen readers — technology that reads out text on a website for people who can’t read it themselves—need to be able to as well.

Accessibility can be as basic as using ‘alt’ attributes that allow you to apply meta data to your images, where hovering over the image opens the door to more information. The ‘alt’ function is the first step to making a site visible and one would certainly hope that all web developers are using it now.

Technology like Flash isn’t flash at all in the accessibility stakes—in fact, Flash is just one giant image. Your content also needs to make sense when read out of context. For instance, links in your text which say “Read more” or “Click here” mean absolutely nothing to people who can’t read what is on the page. Screen readers are able to pull out all links from a page therefore they need to have more substance like: “Read more about our latest speaking events.”

There are many other things you can do to assist screen readers, such as Skip Links. Screen readers not only scan a website to detect where you are but, as mentioned above, can pull up a list of links. At the top of the document, it’s often a good idea to include some links that can allow users to jump directly to the main content area, search function or navigation. The Skip Links function is very useful as it allows immediate access to three of the most important parts of any site—content, search and navigation.

Accessibility for the masses

Accessibility is not just for people with complete vision impairment. It is also for people who have difficulty with low contrast or small fonts. A lot of these users use screen magnifiers, therefore when building websites, developers need to ensure that images don’t separate when people zoom in on the page. Building your site with scalable fonts is also a major plus for accessibility. There is a built in feature in every browser that allows the user to increase the font size however this is only available across all browsers if you use scalable font sizes like em, % or keywords.

The Royal New Zealand Foundation of the Blind recently won an award for the accessibility and creativity of their website. There are nice little features like high contrast mode or the ability to adjust the color in the text. These are features that are easy to implement using CSS and should not be overlooked.

Accessibility is not just for the vision or physically impaired. Its universality means you can view website content on any medium, such as a laptop, cell phone or fridge if the Internet is connected.

Making it happen

Web developers can do their best to make a website accessible, but the bottom line is you only know if it is truly accessible by getting vision impaired users to use it and give you feedback.

There are many companies and agencies out there more than happy to help. For instance, the RNZFB has a whole IT department who can test your website and there are international groups that will do the same. Approach your local university to set up a user feedback test for you.

Accessibility is best practice web development. It is about access—like a ramp or a lift for people who can’t walk up the stairs to your office—to your website. More and more governmental agencies are making it law to cater for all audiences. If you are building a website, you need to be aware of this.

Essentially, accessibility is all about returning to the vision that created the World Wide Web in the first place.

www.starline.co.nz

Check it out for yourself

It’s that time of the year again when the Mountain Dew Road Tour hits all the great summer hot spots for fun, games and give aways. The Dew Trailer is cruising your favorite holiday hang out with a wicked prize pack up for grabs, including an Xbox360 console and heaps of games, a Samsung 37” LCD TV and a whole lot more.

Of course they will also be dishing out cold Dew along the way and a bunch of other goodies and great prize packs that include games like Rockband and Lips and all you have to do is turn up. To be in the running for the Xbox360 prize pack you need to register at the website.

The Mountain Dew website has also had a cool make over and is now a single web destination incorporating the Tour site, Tour Blog Posts into the main Mountain Dew site. What is really interesting is that the entire site is built in the open source technology WordPress a blog, tool and publishing platform.

The result is clean and stylish, and utilises all the standard features of WordPress. Flickr plug ins deliver the photos and the Ambassador section uses categories making it user friendly so it is an excellent self service section for people signing up and keep their profile and messages updated. Also the back end of the registrations is integrated with salesforce.com turning it into a powerful marketing tool making it really easy to manage the online community campaign by campaign.

Furthermore, the Mountain Dew Tour has created a brand presence in Facebook as well as Twitter when fans can interact with the brand by uploading and sharing photos and videos that they shot at a tour locations. All of these online presences are connected in some way to each other which ensures total collaboration across the different online communities of the fan base.

This site is a great example of an FMCG product successfully building an interactive online community – check it out at mountaindew’s website.

Skills 4 Headache Management

Another site that is worthy of a quick mention is Skills4Work. This is a brilliant web designation for individuals and businesses looking for training and workforce solutions. Skills4Work offer practical workforce strategies that enable you to develop your staff and your business. Some of their key products and services include Training, Apprentice Management Programmes, Competitive Edge Programme and Workplace Literacy.

The site has recently had the styling re worked. It always had well written copy without clutter and now seems even cleaner with a lot more white space – which I like. The look and feel is professional and easy to navigate making it totally business friendly. Informative and helpful this site is an impressive instance where business solutions are delivered well online. Pay it a visit at skills4work website.

]]> http://www.markerstudio.com/design/2009/01/cold-dew-makes-hot-online-community/feed/ 0 http://www.markerstudio.com/design/2008/11/decision-08-new-zealand-political-party-online-ratings/ http://www.markerstudio.com/design/2008/11/decision-08-new-zealand-political-party-online-ratings/#comments Sun, 02 Nov 2008 05:30:19 +0000 Marker http://www.markerstudio.com.php5-1.dfw1-1.websitetestlink.com/?p=1233

The eyes of the world will be on the US elections on Tuesday, however there is another election happening this week here in New Zealand, if you live here you might have heard about it. I decided to put my geek hat on, and look at how the three main parties (based on current polling), National Party, Labour Party and the Green Party, stack up if you look at purely their online presence.

Decision 08 Political Party Online Ratings (click to enlarge)

I have put together this ratings table which looks at the following areas:

Search Engine Optimisation

An important part of any online strategy, but particularly important as you want to have high visibility within Google (90% market share in NZ) as this is where most of your traffic should come from.

Search Engine Advertising

Pay per click advertising via Google AdWords would help supplement their traffic and exposure.

Site Design

Particular attention to the homepage, as this is their best opportunity to try to engage with voters.

Social Networking

How did they do on You Tube and Facebook? It doesn’t look like anyone has got onto Twitter yet.

RSS

RSS should be the best way to keep updated on what was happening and the content they are publishing.

Here are some of the other facts and figures I found along the way.

Google Trends Prediction of the Election

This is the index of search traffic on Google for the different political parties by name, and leader. The top graph looks at search traffic, the bottom graph looks at mentions in the news.

The fact that Labour and the Green Party are so close is somewhat interesting.

As you can see, relatively speaking, the interest in the other leaders, apart from John Key and Helen Clark is limited, in fact, there isn’t enough data for Google to draw a line on the graph.

Facebook

Who is winning in the world of social networks?

If Facebook friends were representative of the voting public, then John Key is substantially more popular than the incumbent leader.

ACT vs Green looks very different on Facebook than in the polls.

Winston Peters has no Facebook Page or Profile, and the Winston Peters Appreciation Group is not exactly going that well, with a mere 32 members.

Greens.org.nz Home Page

I have singled this out, as the worst home page. An example is the big green box for “Our Acheivements” which is completely blank! Whilst I appreciate the self-criticism, surely you guys have done something as trusted coalition partners for all these years?

I think it was just disappointing that they didn’t really apply the great photography they have used in the billboards on their website. I imagine they just ran out of time and money unfortunately.

They do have the best blog though.

Conclusion

My conclusion, and bear in mind much of this was based on subjective opinion, was that the National Party has the best overall online presence. The quality, quantity and reach of content is surprisingly good, and not what I would have expected. The fact that you can leave a comment on John Key’s blog, but not on Helen Clark’s “diary” also gave them points for being open to participation and online discussion.