Jens Oliver Meiert

“2007”

Choke Web Development Framework 1.0

After years of thorough research I may finally present the Choke Web Development Framework 1.0, “Choke” or “CWDF” in short. Choke is an easy-to-use, easy-to-maintain, and future-proof platform for web design and development…

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Dark Days for Germany

Yesterday, on the historically significant November 9, the German government approved a law that requires telecommunications providers to retain all customer communication data for a period of six months, and allows authorities to gain access to stored communications…

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3 Great Learning Strategies for Generalists

“Lifelong learning” sounds like some sort of buzzword, but it’s necessary to develop and progress, and awesome to cultivate. Mistakes are great, too, as they are accelerating the learning process, and this needs to be kept in mind…

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Qualities of Design: It Works and It’s Durable

Attempting to improve my simplified definition of design I’d like to point out another important attribute beside functionality, namely durability (or robustness). This means that a design that works may nonetheless be bad if…

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User Agent Style Sheets: Basics and Samples

CSS manages the default formatting of documents through user agent style sheets, a cornerstone of the cascade. This means that a web browser doesn’t just present a line of text when it’s fed with an HTML document that has no styling information, but…

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Cost of Solution vs. Cost of Problem

Problems cost money, and problems require solutions that also cost money. This is known in all industries, but in many cases, there is focus on only one side: What does the solution of the problem cost? This ignores the other side, the cost of the problem.

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Microformats Would Benefit From a Namespace

Microformats become more and more popular, accelerated by the questionable success of the nofollow microformat. However, those of them that mandate class names cause problems that could be avoided by using a “pseudo-namespace.”

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7 Additional Ways to Focus on Users

Smashing Magazine just published my article on “20 (Alternate) Ways to Focus on Users,” and not only do I like to point to the article, I also like to extend it. A quick bonus level, so to speak.

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The Art of Dancing in 1910 and Narratives of Time and Space

Information design time travel with several photos of Zorn’s ancient “Grammar of the Art of Dancing.” Featuring craftsmanship, small multiples, and, surprise, “narratives of time and space.”

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Are You a Web Designer or a Web Decorator?

This has bothered me for for a long time. The topic popped up when I thought about art and design, and it had to be covered when Roger asked whether we were designers or developers—

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The 1,000 Dollar Comment Game

Finally, the remake of the infamous comment game. Easy money and link love.

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Interview: Me on Blogs and Blogging

Bruce C. Brown interviewed me for his forthcoming book, The Secret Power of Blogging.

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HTML Elements Index

A regularly updated list of all elements in HTML 1, HTML 2.0, HTML 3.2, HTML 4.01, XHTML 1.0, XHTML 1.1, HTML 5.2, and living HTML, including their meanings.

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Arguments for the “style” Attribute

The HTML Working Group is currently arguing whether to drop the style attribute. To encourage discussion outside the Working Group, here are the reasons I see to keep @style.

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A Plea for Better Software: Provide Auto-Save

So far, applications rarely automatically and periodically save users’ work. They therefore fail to prevent unnecessary, frustrating, expensive loss of work and information. Since this isn’t just a but a critical problem, we need to encourage application developers and owners…

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Load Time, the UX Factor: Facts and Measures

Load time of websites seems to remain our industry’s stepchild, but the vision is real-time surfing, not spending bandwidth improvements. There are still some facts and measures to consider when it comes to fast websites with a certain ease of use. Here are eight, to be exact.

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WCAG, HTML, and CSS: Maybe the Standards Need a Break

The web development community worries about the development of WCAG, HTML, and CSS (about the latter since recently). These worries and the related criticism appear valid and legitimate, and there are things we could do.

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Requirements for Website Prototypes (and Design Systems)

Best practices for website prototypes based on HTML, CSS, and DOM scripting, covering essential requirements from accessibility to universality, and including definitions, pros, and contras. Compiled from a recent presentation.

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Me on Czech TV

Czech Nova TV phone-interviewed me about The World’s Highest Website!

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Principles of Art, Design, and Decoration

Much thinking about design has led me to the conclusion that defining the terms art, design, and decoration can be pretty simple. Outlining their principles, at least.

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10 Steps to Create a High-Quality Website

A quality website doesn’t fall from the sky, and it’s impossible to create in a few fast clicks. When setting up a website, one needs goals, content, structure, design, programming, and maintenance. What one needs is…

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On Updating a Book (Webdesign mit CSS, 2nd Edition)

I’m still working on the second edition of Webdesign mit CSS. And I can say: I like this work, though updating a book is more challenging than starting from scratch. It looks like less work at first, but that work is different.

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Revitalizing SUS, the System Usability Scale

About 20 years ago, John Brooke published the concept of a “System Usability Scale,” a “reliable, low-cost usability scale that can be used for global assessments of systems usability.” SUS is based on a Likert-scale questionnaire…

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.htaccess: 7 Useful Ingredients (Plus Bonus)

This article features useful directives for .htaccess configuration files, based on my experience with a number of lightweight projects. It’s a pretty simple collection and you may be aware of some of these things…

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The Problem With Link Blogs (Plus Five Link Blogs That Rock)

Link blogs suck because they don’t provide content. With few exceptions, link blogs suck because they jump on the back of people who actually create content. Link blogs nonetheless play an important role in the hypertext ecosystem…

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25 Excellent Usability/UX Articles and Resources

Today I thought I’d share some of the most valuable usability and user experience articles and resources I know, in a somewhat wild mix. Since there’s presumably enough to read and talk about later, please welcome a few great articles and research papers…

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Photos Make Websites More Credible

An important finding of Stanford University’s work regarding web credibility is that photos can make websites more credible. A study by B.J. Fogg et al. showed how “a photograph of an author had significant effects on how people perceived [credibility]”…

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CSS Practice: Namespaces in Complex Projects

Working in complex projects or in projects that don’t provide a good overview of forthcoming page types and elements may require a defensive strategy for writing CSS. Such a defensive strategy rests on certain safety measures to ensure better maintainability…

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Why I Love DreamHost

No kidding. Unconditional love. Almost.

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“Valid CSS” and Similar Claims Are Unprofessional

You know them. “Valid CSS” here, “Valid HTML” there, complemented by a “WAI AA” button. When these website claims hold true, that’s a great thing. Unfortunately, these conformance and quality claims have no place on professional websites.

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Hire Only Web Designers With a Website

…is a good rule of thumb when you need a web designer or developer. Though it’s not necessarily the most important criterion, the benefits are obvious. Web designers who also own websites are more likely to be close to the medium…

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HTML: Semantics of “title” Element Content

I already proposed this in October 2005 but see the need to bring it up again: It would be useful to allow other elements within the title of an HTML document. Why? You otherwise cannot mark abbreviations and other flow content elements, which means their meaning gets lost…

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Print Style Sheets: The Basics (for No Excuses)

There are no excuses for not having at least a simple print style sheet. If you’re already on the web standards track, things are simple.

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Weird Weekend Without Happy End: Eggebek, Flensburg, Denmark, Bremen

To be a bit more transparent to my valued readers: a brief account of a not quite optimal weekend of mine.

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Word Division: On “word-break,” Soft Hyphens, and Zero-Width Spaces

Word breaks and hyphenation are sometimes a problem when it comes to little available space but long words: The longer the word and the less space available, the more a layout is at risk. English appears to be less affected than other languages, but…

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Why “Conditional Comments” Are Bad, Repeat: Bad

“Conditional Comments” are inadvisable to use. They contradict the goal of separating structure from presentation, and because of that they will hurt you one day.

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QA: On Errors, and Why Paying for Errors Pays Off

A pseudo-scientific approach to improve websites and services, and that is applicable almost anywhere.

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1 + 1 = 3: Explaining Busyness and Background Noise on Websites

“1 + 1 = 3 (or more)” is an important design effect described by Josef Albers and Edward Tufte. It means that two elements in close proximity cause a visible interaction…

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Web Design: 15 Important Research Findings You Should Know

A small selection of research findings related to web design, usability, and accessibility, most of them obtained from Human Factors International. With some of them being known, others may add to the understanding of our profession.

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Internet Explorer Filter or Hack Using Character Escapes

Searching for a valid and “safe” way to circumnavigate an ugly layout problem in Internet Explorer I discovered the following filter that does not work in [IE ≤6].

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Evangelists, Focus on Standard Ad Code

On the quality of online ad code, and what we could do.

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“nofollow” Still Considered Harmful

Well, nofollow is crap.

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