10 tips about web design

12. okt 2001 Henrik Birkvig has published the book Tips on web design in which he collected an commented tips from selected designers, including this signature.

12. okt 2001// design /web //
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Show only the user it is necessary

Only ask only the user to download e.g. the Flash plugin if it is missing, or redirect to an HTML version of the page. Avoid to proselytize such as the web site will be better, nicer or more fun with Flash. And if the user has already the necessary plugin, do not bother her about.

Cut the crap - drop the reservations

Such as messages that the page is optimized for a specific browser or screen size. The user probably can not do anything about it (or will not) ...

Elastic design

... and create instead a design that takes into account these differences. A design that can tolerate different screen sizes, colors, etc.

Do not disturb (unnecessary) user concentration

e.g. with pictures or explanations that appears around the page when you point to a hyperlink. Do not waste the energy on specific text in the status bar. And some Web users may actually use the real status message.

Make choices for the user and believe in your site

Prioritize important information - from what you will tell the user, or what the user wants to know. At best, the two collapsed. But it is you who know the Web site, it is you who are communicating.

Data only one place

Web site is easier to manage if the same data, such as menu items, not located in many different documents. It is made easy with Server Site Includes. Major web projects should be based on databases.

Appearance and content are kept separate

Using Cascading Style Sheets to give visual form content. It is easier to manage and customize various user equipment.

Technically enthusiasm

Technical experiments are the basis for development. If you really had to be careful with all the technical improvements that pops up on the internet, there would hardly be any world wide web today. Accessibility is also about just using advanced technical standards and possibilities to make the content simple, comprehensible and easy to use - with the option for individual adjustments.
Lowest common denominator should not control the Web design. Make the best design that supports communication, and then add fleksibility that doesn't ditch the weakest.

Tips in general

Listen to good advice, but don't keep them too long. A good advice today may be obsolete in a year.
Good advice is like a checklist, but do not necessarily act up to all. The applicability of the advice depends on what type of site you are dealing with. The best advice is: Think for yourself - decide for yourself.
Catch me

Catch me

7. JUN 2014 // cd-cover
‘Grib mig’ is the title in danish, for the time being, of a coming cd, for which Marianne Mortensen and Michael Vesterskov had gathered four musicians for two days live recordings. I had the pleasure of being among the audience – and to design the provisional cover that together with a sign up form should make the audience pre-order […]
Egg pattern

Egg pattern

14. APR 2014 // design
Pattern with eggs for the tablecloth and the napkins for the easter celebration lunch. Enjoy.
iSticks and iSkins

iSticks and iSkins

13. DEC 2010 // ipad /mobilt web /offentligt rum
The danish boulevard newspaper, Ekstra Bladet, has decided to campaign for the freedom of speech – seen as the freedom of nudity. The danish MEP, Morten Messerschmidt is supporting by taking the discussion into the European Parliament.
Seven clicks towards Mobile First

Seven clicks towards Mobile First

The net is flooded with apps - for smartphones and tablets. But web sites are still better viewed on a computer, right? So the marketing department is happy and web design is business as usual. Maybe because apps and web sites are considered as two different things, rather than two versions of the same.
You may create coherence […]
Welt aus Schrift, type exhibition in Berlin

Welt aus Schrift, type exhibition in Berlin

12. NOV 2010 // design /typografi /berlin
Posters, books, jugend, bauhaus and de stijl ... via swiss to decon. The Welt Aus Schrift exhibition in Berlin is beauty in the literal sense of the letter. Do take a visit!
Bridges and letters in Amsterdam

Bridges and letters in Amsterdam

Round the city of Amsterdam, crossing the grachten - many of the bridges have their names displayed with ‘De Amsterdamse Brugletters’.

The photography is dead – long live the photographer

10. JUN 1998 // design /illustration
First the good news: The photography has lost its trustworthyness, because the digital technology has made it obvious to anybody that every photopgraphy can be manipulated.
And then the bad news: We are being told that actually the possibility of computer manipulation it self killed the reliability. And thus tend to maintain […]
Spis Bare [Just Eat] receives Bording Prisen 2009

Spis Bare [Just Eat] receives Bording Prisen 2009

15. JUN 2009 // design /tidsskrift /spis bare
The danish magazine Spis Bare is a very inspirering food-professional og well-informed magazine med professional depth and delicious presentation.
Friday June 12 the magazine Spis Bare was awarded Anders Bordings Mediepris 2009. I have in collaboration with the editor, Mette Jensen, developed the magazine during the last […]

The user rules

1. MAJ 2000 // design /web
Usability and accessibilty on the web becomes synonymous with free choice and professionalizing of the user. Thus, she is more and less self responsible for being able to recieve the information of the websites.
The computer is putting still greater demands to the user, but despite of that it is easier to use today than ever. […]
This is not a logo

This is not a logo

The logo is not an element, a graphical form, but the character in the way it is exposed in various contexts. Thus, the logo is not a categorism any more, but a organism, a being.
I was pleased at ‘Total Typographic Saturday’ in the end of october, as Tore Rosbo and Clea Simonsen from the design bureau 1508 presented the identity […]
Web design, home pages for starters

Web design, home pages for starters

1. SEP 2001 // design /web
To the puritan any design that make any demands, will be noise. But you may as well take the opposite stand, that the purely textbased information is reserved for the skillede readers.
Torben Wilhelmsen, Thomas Green and Geert Sander Published first time in 1997. The book was one the selected Books of the Year in 1998 in Denmark. […]
ATypI Copenhagen dynamisk logo

ATypI Copenhagen logo

We had the napkin with the notes from the galla dinner at ATypI in Leipzig 2000, Henrik Birkvig and I on the flight back to Copenhagen, and we knew that we, together with Kim Pedersen, were about to organize ATypI in Copenhagen the year after. And already then we sketched the cliches for identity of the conference: Red-white, old-new […]

More web sites for the danish authorities are using webfonts

5. DEC 2013 //
But far the most of them still don’t! Only 22 out of 122 web sites for the danish authorities. And the majority of those are prefering free fonts. On the other hand is the number more than doubled in a year, since November 2012 when the number was 9 out of 115.
The study is a snapshot that I took November 6, 2013 and covers the […]
It looks like a mail from the agriculture association, but it might as well be phishing

It looks like a mail from the agriculture association, but it might as well be phishing

If I buy something on, say, sales.com, the response mail should come from sales.com and all links within the mail should be to sales.com. Anything else looks as a phishing attempt, and it might as well be.

Technical enthusiasm, please

1. SEP 2000 // web
Usability and accessibility on the net becomes more and more equal to unlimited choices and professionalizing of the user, who thus will be the responsible to be able to get the information from the websites.
You may say I am puritan. On the other hand, when I shuffle the web, I may too say that I have the right to be puritan. […]
Your website is (almost) an app

Your website is (almost) an app

14. DEC 2010 // reklame /ipad /web /mobilt web /mobilism /web apps
I must admit, it’s (still) cool to have my icon right there on the iPad screen. As an app, yes, but a website can also do the trick. And website based app may sometimes even be a better solution than a native app.

Typesetting the net - font embedding

23. SEP 2000 // typografi /web
For a very low cost of 5-10 k fontembedding gives the possibility of getting typographic identity for a whole website – allthough with a litte trouble.
The frustration about missing typographic tools for web design might be well aknowledged. How do I make typography in a graphically sense for the web. Cascading stylesheets offers […]

Freedom through constraint

10. OKT 2001 // web
The postman is somewhat special. He brings all sorts of things. Postcards from Jamaica. Bills, too, unfortunately, but it’s not his fault, after all.
home.pages - preface - june 1997 The postman is somewhat special. He brings all sorts of things. Postcards from Jamaica. Bills, too, unfortunately, but it’s not his fault, […]