richard cross » Internet

FM 100 Hue Test

Richard — Tue, 04 May 2010 16:14:27 +0000

How good is your colour vision?
Take the Hue Test to find out…

100 Hue Test

Election websites round up

Richard — Wed, 14 Apr 2010 08:54:14 +0000

It’s that time again…here’s a round up of the current crop of political websites:

Who to vote for?

voteforpolicies.org.uk – simple Q&A on core policies, the results may surprise
theyworkforyou.com – what has your MP has been up to (on your behalf)?
voterpower.org.uk – how much your vote is worth in your constituency?
electornot.org.uk – sod the policies, what do they look like?
aboutmyvote.co.uk – voting information & registration (in case you haven’t already)
news.bbc.co.uk – news and updates from the BBC

Main Political Parties (England & Wales)

Main Political Parties (Scotland)

Web Design Analysis

Design Review – by coastdigital.co.uk
Design Review – by maban.co.uk
Accessibility Review – by s3webdesign.co.uk

TheHighlands.com – Updated

Richard — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 14:00:21 +0000

This morning I discovered TheHighlands.com had been hacked to redirect different site. As I’d not kept the site nor WordPress updated I wasn’t really surprised, but it serves as a valuable lesson to keep applications updated. To plug the gap I’ve replaced the entire site with my gallery of Scottish Mountain Photography.

ScotlandIS – Naturally Cool

Richard — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 16:00:06 +0000

Promotional card for the ScotlandIS ‘Naturally Cool’ campaign using my image of Loch Morlich:

http://www.scotlandis.com/naturallycool

WordPress E-Commerce

Richard — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 15:46:02 +0000

Have just launched online booking for Skinny Tyres using the WordPress E-Commerce plug-in. It comes will a reasonable set of configurable options meaning it can be pressed into a variety of uses. By default it integrates with PayPal and Google Checkout, but for a fee of about $200 it can be tied in with other payment gateways such as Sage Pay. Will be monitoring its usability before unrolling onto other sites.

Ding-Dong, Avon calling…

Richard — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 15:47:15 +0000

Launched this week is Avon’s ‘Win a Mortgage‘ competition site. Project Managed for Maglabs and developed by Fresh Monkey participants with both parts of a prize code can check to see if they have won their mortgage (for a year), a second prizes worth £1000 or a variety of promotional vouchers.

Delivered on time and to budget it has exceeded the client’s expectation and is an illustration of how all projects could be.

Web Trends Map #4

Richard — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 09:54:55 +0000

The state of the web mapped into Tokyo’s metro system by the ever thought provoking Information Architects. This time in a much more engaging ‘zoom’ version, an excellent way to illustrate the complexity of the Internet it would have been even better if the nodes were links:

http://openzoom.org/webtrendmap

WordPress posts from a Blackberry

Richard — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 18:33:46 +0000

Getting to grips with the new Blackberry (Curve 8900) in preparation for the trip. So far very impressed, especially with the addition of a lightweight WordPress plugin (WPhone) which makes posting very easy.

Not quite so impressed by the photo blogging, the Flickr plugin I’ve tired over compresses images and returns errors when uploading at original full size. Not really an issue as I can email images straight in, but these images don’t carry any GPS positional data so they don’t automatically appear on the Flickr map (which would have been a nice touch).

Recent Sites

Richard — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 10:55:21 +0000

While I’ve been busy working on 2 major projects (which will be live soon) I’ve also been been providing updates and enhancements for existing clients. Having not posted any updates for a while I thought I’d do a round up of recent activity:

Shore Croft – integration with Super Control booking and payment system
Great Base – new apartments and integration with Super Control
Dunbars Close – bespoke online booking and payment system
Rultand Bio – conversion to WordPress for content management
Ski Paddle Norway – numerous updates and enhancements
Gintime – monthly updates for the queen of all gin sites

Plus there are also a couple of new sites to announce:

Skinny Tyres – WordPress site with a bespoke theme (and photography)
Alba Outdoors – WordPress site using a downloaded theme

Digital Production at Napier University

Richard — Sat, 28 Mar 2009 11:56:25 +0000

Last Thursday I was invited to Edinburgh Napier University to talk to the students on the undergraduate Interactive Media Design course about ‘digital production’. It was a select group of students (5) who turned up to enjoy my take on producing websites.

In preparing for the talk I summarised the main elements to consider when starting a site, I’ll be using these to work up a new version of the project survey I send to clients when they first approach me with a request for a site:

Scope

Objectives
Requirements
Audience
Resources
Benchmarks

Planning

Architecture
User Journey
Wireframe
Creative
Technology

Production

Template
Web Standards
Technical Development
Content Creation & Input
Search Engine Optimisation

Each of these areas deserve careful consideration to ensure the appropriate choices are made against the resources available.