Michael Gaigg: Über UI/UX Design

8Sep3

Design Guidelines: Print Stylesheet

Posted by Michael Gaigg

One of the most elegant techniques in web design is the use of a print stylesheet to control the style of a webpage on a hardcopy. Being so easy and cheap it is by far the most undervalued technique out there.
Often overseen bonuses are

  • adding copyright statements or thank you notes,
  • controlling which elements should not be seen (remove menu, commercials,...) and
  • in general ensure that the printed page is legible (contrast especially for links, fonts, ...).
Results of applying a print stylesheet to the page

Results of applying a print stylesheet to the page

Design Guideline for a Print Stylesheet

  1. Make page legible
    • Use serif font family (e.g. Georgia)
    • Use points (e.g. 12pt)
    • Ensure good contrast (e.g. color: #000; background: #FFF)
  2. Maximize paper use (e.g. width: 100%)
  3. Hide elements not relevant to print (e.g. display: none)
  4. Add content relevant to print (e.g. spell out links, thank you note)
  5. Use correct markup to reduce amount of styling (e.g. h1, h2,...)

How it works

Embed an extra stylesheet designed for print media into the page.

<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" media="print" href="print.css" />

This stylesheet takes effect when a user invokes the print function of the browser and overrules style elements in other stylesheets on the page.

Then either provide a button or link that triggers a javascript function to print the page or have the user go through the browser's menu, even print preview would show you the expected layout already.

<a href="#" onclick="window.print();return false;">Print page</a>

I know, evil javascript, but hey, if turned on it works cross-browser (except IE6 with multiple IE versions installed).

Code sample

I recognize that many samples can be found on the web but I also found them incomplete in many cases. I don't claim to be compete myself, but I really like with what I came up with and most of all would like to hear your comments and feedback or even better references or links where you applied it to.

Download sample code

index.htm

<html>
<head>
<style type="text/css" media="all">
@import "main.css";
</style>
<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" media="print" href="print.css" />
</head>
<body>
<div id="wrapper">
<div id="statement">Legal statement and thank you note.</div>
<div id="header">Header</div>
<div id="content">Content plus <a href="http://link.com/">Link</a></div>
<div id="footer">Footer</div>
</div>
</body>
</html>

main.css


/**
Elements
*/
html, body, div, span, applet, object, iframe,
h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6, p, blockquote, pre,
a, abbr, acronym, address, big, cite, code,
del, dfn, em, font, img, ins, kbd, q, s, samp,
small, strike, strong, sub, sup, tt, var,
dl, dt, dd, ol, ul, li,
fieldset, form, label, legend,
table, caption, tbody, tfoot, thead, tr, th, td {
margin: 0;
padding: 0;
border: 0;
outline: 0;
font-weight: inherit;
font-style: inherit;
font-size: 100%;
font-family: inherit;
vertical-align: baseline;
}
/* remember to define focus styles! */
:focus {
outline: 0;
}
body {
line-height: 1;
color: black;
background: white;
font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;
}
ol, ul {
list-style: none;
}
/* tables still need 'cellspacing="0"' in the markup */
table {
border-collapse: separate;
border-spacing: 0;
}
caption, th, td {
text-align: left;
font-weight: normal;
}
blockquote:before, blockquote:after,
q:before, q:after {
content: "";
}
blockquote, q {
quotes: "" "";
}
/**
Classes
*/
/**
IDs
*/
#wrapper {
background: #FFFFFF none repeat scroll 0%;
margin: 0pt auto;
width: 600px;
}
#header {
border: 1px solid #CCC;
margin: 5px;
padding: 5px;
}
#content {
border: 1px solid #CCC;
background: #EEE;
margin: 5px;
padding: 5px;
height: 200px;
}
#footer {
border: 1px solid #CCC;
margin: 5px;
padding: 5px;
}
a:link, a:visited {
border-bottom:1px dotted;
color:#AE4F0C;
font-weight:bold;
text-decoration:none;
}
a:visited {
color:#333333;
}
a:hover, a:focus {
border-bottom-style:solid;
color:#D03900;
}
a:focus {
/*background:#FFFFCC none repeat scroll 0%;*/
}
#statement {
display: none;
}

print.css


body {
font-family: Georgia, serif;
background: #FFF;
color: #000;
font-size: 12pt;
}
#wrapper, #content {
width: auto;
height: auto;
margin: 0 5%;
padding: 0;
border: 0;
float: none !important;
color: #000;
background: transparent none;
}
#content {
margin: 10px;
}
#header, #menu, #sidebar, #footer, .noprint {
display: none;
}
#statement {
display: block;
border: 1px solid #666;
padding: 10px;
}
a:link, a:visited {
color: #781351;
background: transparent;
text-decoration: underline;
}
a:link:after, a:visited:after {
content: " [" attr(href) "] ";
}

References:

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14Nov4

Design Guidelines: ‘About Us’ Page

Posted by Michael Gaigg

IT Solutions About Us page

Example of an 'About Us' page from IT Solutions

There are many reasons for improving the usability of your 'About Us' page. Unfortunately many companies, especially bigger and well-known companies, tend to underestimate the value that comes from a well-designed 'About Us' page or simply assume that there is no need to explain themselves to their users.

The 'About Us' page helps to establish and re-enforce Trust and Credibility. Users of different backgrounds may need to know who is behind the content or service. Should I invest in this company? Apply for a job? Write an article about their service? Order a product?

The best news over all is: a simple link on your homepage is cheap and easy and the benefits of a clean and well-structured 'About Us' page outweigh many times the effort of creating it.

Design Guidelines for 'About Us' pages

  1. Provide clearly visible link on homepage
  2. Label the link either “About ” or “About Us”
  3. Present content in ‘inverted pyramid’ layers:
    • Tagline: Few words or brief sentence summarizing what you do
    • Summary: One to two paragraphs about goals and main accomplishments
    • Fact sheet: Section that outlines key points and other essential facts
    • Details: Subsidiary pages providing indebt information about processes, company structure, philosophy etc.
  4. Disclose address

References

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6Nov0

Design Guidelines: Pagination

Posted by Michael Gaigg

One thing I hear from visual designers over and over again: 'Those Usability guys destroy our creative possibilities'. While I understand the desire to live in complete design heaven I want to strongly emphasize the need for a usable design heaven. Every thing in this world has a certain affordance, i.e. it affords to do something which we need to design for. A chair for example affords to be seated on, designers are therefore constrained to design chairs in a way that supports the human body while sitting. Now, does that restrict creativity in chair design? Without doubt NO, numerous examples show that thousands of different chairs exist but all have one common goal: to support the task on hand - which is seating a person!

Chair Design

Variety of chairs showing the existence of a usable design heaven

Designing page elements like pagination is not different. Navigation options must be visible and the pagination must be intuitive. Creative solutions can still be user-friendly as shown in smashingmagazine's Pagination Gallery.

But now, here are the

Design Guidelines for Pagination

  1. Provide large clickable areas
  2. Don’t use underlines
  3. Identify the current page and don't hyperlink it
  4. Space out page links
  5. Provide Previous and Next links
  6. Use First and Last links (where applicable)
  7. Only use Last links when they make sense
  8. Put First and Last links on the outside
  9. Provide a reasonable number of pagination links
  10. Eclipse missing or endless pages

Code Sample / Template

End results (from http://digg.com/):
Example Pagination

<div class="pagination">
<span class="nextprev">&laquo; Previous</span>
<span class="current">1</span>
<a title="Go to page 2" href="/page2" mce_href="/page2">2</a>
<a title="Go to page 3" href="/page3" mce_href="/page3">3</a>
<a title="Go to page 4" href="/page4" mce_href="/page4">4</a>
<a title="Go to page 5" href="/page5" mce_href="/page5">5</a>
<a title="Go to page 6" href="/page6" mce_href="/page6">6</a>
<a title="Go to page 7" href="/page7" mce_href="/page7">7</a>
<a title="Go to page 8" href="/page8" mce_href="/page8">8</a>
<a title="Go to page 9" href="/page9" mce_href="/page9">9</a>
<a title="Go to page 10" href="/page10" mce_href="/page10">10</a>
<span>…</span>
<a title="Go to page 252" href="/page252" mce_href="/page252">252</a>
<a title="Go to page 253" href="/page253" mce_href="/page253">253</a>
<a title="Go to Next Page" class="nextprev" href="/page2" mce_href="/page2">Next &raquo;</a>
</div> 


.pagination {
margin: 5px 0;
line-height: 2em;
}
.pagination span {
}
.pagination a:hover {
background-color: #7F7FB2;
color: #FFF;
}
.pagination a, .pagination a:visited, .pagination a:active {
border: 1px solid #CCC;
background-color: #F2F2F7;
font-weight: normal;
padding: 2px 5px;
text-align: center;
color: #000;
text-decoration: none;
}
.pagination .selected {
background-color: #7F7FB2;
color: #FFF;
font-weight: bold;
}

References

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20Oct4

Design Guidelines: Content

Posted by Michael Gaigg

When writing content for the web it is essential to speak the language of your users. Become a word detective, use google trends. Words are the basic elements of links, get them precisely right to provide strong information scent. Identify trends, don't invent them. Look at the evolution of language.

Get to the essence of the message! Stop 'waving' on your webpage ('Welcome to the webpage of our company. We are proud to blah-blah...').

Always remember that the user is in charge, the user is impatient, nasty, demanding, in a hurry and in control to spend its time somewhere else (according to Jakob Nielsen: 'Users spend most of their time on other sites'). Online marketing is about giving attention (versus offline marketing is about getting attention).

Design Guidelines for Content

  1. Make information easy to find with clear headings and meaningful sub-headings (not ‘clever’ ones).
  2. Break up the information into manageable pieces.
  3. Put the pieces in a logical order for your readers.
  4. Keep your sentences short and employ one idea per paragraph.
  5. Use the ‘inverted pyramid’ style: conclusion (context) first, results later.
  6. Talk to your readers. Use "you".
  7. Write in the active voice (most of the time).
  8. Put the action in the verb, not in the nouns.
  9. Use your readers' words.
  10. Use half the word count (or less) than conventional writing.
  11. Use bulleted lists where appropriate – for a list of items and for parallel "if, then" sentences.
  12. Employ scannable text like highlighted keywords.

Best Practices

See my blog entry for Best Practices for accessible Content

References:

Suggested reading:
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