highflying birds

November 22nd, 2007 * Comments(0)

Two videos that get me high every time I see them…

Web Design & Science

November 21st, 2007 * Comments(0)

23 Lessons from Eye-Tracking Studies
via UX Magazine

Some obvious ones…

Readers ignore banners. Ads may be the bread and butter of your site, but studies have shown that readers largely ignore banner ads, often focusing for only a fraction of a second. If you’re trying to make money from ads, you need to be creative in your ad placement or in the types of ads you have on your site.

Some perhaps less so:

Fancy formatting and fonts are ignored. Why? Because users assume they are ads and don’t have the information they need. In fact, studies showed that users had difficulty finding information in large colored letters formatted in this way because visual clues told them to ignore it. Keep your site streamlined and not so shiny that important elements will be glossed over.

OpenSource & other alternatives

November 13th, 2007 * Comments(0)

I guess it wasn’t mentioned in my job description but among my regular duties I’ve been tasked to search for opensource/freeware/cheap alternatives to common windows based tools used for video & photo editing, 3D modelling, DTP etc. that are a part of the usual software porftolio in a design studio (web/print/video/whatever).

I found some interesting options that might be of use to someone but to be honest from the start – although many of these are actually quite capable I’ve found a number of missing features that would be a deal braker for my personal use. But if you’re just starting out or are on a serious budget or there are some specific circumstances (that’s why I’ve been researching this in the first place) then these should do just fine.

Just one more thing… some of these might not be free but cost considerably less than the industry standard.

sound editing:

3D graphics:

Photo editing:

Vector graphics:

Non linear video editing:

Desktop Publishing:

As I said… I’m not switching completely but these might be very attractive to some.

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