Cubicle Coolness

Scott Adams of Dilbert cartoon fame, designed the ultimate cubicle. I suppose it's only natural that the person who spent years drawing little office-themed boxes on paper (his "cubicle farms" cartoons), would eventually want to develop a real-life box, so that real people can actually sit in and operate out of it, in comfort and style. The glowy honeycomb look & feel of this box beats all cubicles I've ever worked in, hands down, bar none.

Here's a handy dandy little tool for for the eager CSS learner: it's CSS Zen Garden... a series of CSS templates (read: cheat sheets), that allow you to completely alter the look and feel of a web site, by simply changing the style sheet. Examples are downloadable... Once again, the word "clever" comes to mind.

What Color is That Anyhow?

As a designer, I spend my days dreaming up fabulous color combinations. I'm intrigued by the way colors play with one another, when placed next to each other. Opposite colors have a sort of "electric" effect, while those in the same hue but of different tones can have a calming effect. Of all the possible elements of design, color is my very favorite.

Now, imagine not being able to see color the way you do... if you were color blind. I confess, I'd not given that much thought to it, beyond basic accessibility issues... until I found this web site: Vischeck.

Check individual images, or feed a URL into their form, and see what it comes up with. I tried it on StudioClaire.com (my portfolio site), and was surprised by what I saw!

I guess that until the day when someone recovers from color blindness and is able to compare before and after versions, we will never know exactly how differently we each view the same colors, tones and hues, but this online tool might give us a sneak peek at visual impairment!

Watch Your Users' Every Move

Watch users navigate through your site, by recording their mouse clicks, with a simple line of JavaScript added to the code, to make it go.

RobotReplay allows you to view your users' activity on your site, and learn where they do and don't go. This could very well take the guesswork out of some usability issues that lead to stagnant marketing efforts. It's anonymous, so Big Brother remains out of the picture, at least for now, and it's relatively effortless... It's like usability research, but without putting in the time.

Check out this nail-biting example.