As many of you are aware, web design is a hobby of mine (at times bordering on an obsession). That said, there are two new web designs that I want to bring to the attention of those that appreciate solid layouts. Yes, both of them are friends of mine, and both have done work on matthewgood.org, but their new singular achievements of late are fantastic. So if you’re a fan of design check out the new BraveNewCode design and Duane Storey’s new layout.

March 22, 2009 15 Comments

First, Merry Christmas to everyone. I want to extend my most heartfelt thanks for another year of your support. I’ve been blessed with a truly amazing group of fans from around the world and hope to continue to earn your support through my recorded work, live performances, and commitment to this website. For me, it is the best gift that I have receive every year.

Second, I want to thank Dale Mugford and Duane Storey for turning this design into a reality. It was completely unexpected and I am truly overwhelmed. It was a wonderful gift. As always, you can check out their portfolio at Brave New Code.

Third, being that I have my whole family coming over to the house for Christmas dinner, if they can make it through the snow, I was given the task of stuffing and popping one of two turkeys into the oven this morning (yes, one of two, a lot of people are coming). That said, by this time tomorrow either I’ll still be here or I’ll have put my entire family in the hospital. Let’s hope for the former.

Anyway, Explosions In The Sky is turned up to 11 and I’m off to do my daily reading. Merry Christmas everyone.

PS: The top graphic and site title are now active links, so you can click on them at any time to return to the main page.

December 25, 2008 34 Comments

Rehearsing. Pacing the lengths of my apartment with a guitar, wandering through songs I haven’t performed acoustically in a while in preparation for this weekend’s upcoming acoustic show. You know me – in the end I’ll probably just wing it.

Sometimes you just have to.

The heat’s come back. Plans made for the fall have regrettably changed for various reasons. Still can’t sleep. The dogs are at my parents’ place and I have to admit that I am enjoying being alone. Stretch out in bed, move at a snail’s pace.

Dale, Duane, and I have been working on a new site design that should be launched soon, perhaps even later today. It is, in my opinion, the best design that we have come up with and is functionally outstanding.

August 25, 2008 30 Comments

As a front-end designer (*see below), I spend my time concentrating on appearance and how it best cooperates with functionality. As anyone worth their design salt will tell you, there are two challenges faced by front-end web designers. The first, and ultimate challenge, in my opinion, is the ability to design with white space representing the primary plane. In truth, the anchorless realities of white space make it one of the most difficult web design mediums to work with. As Dale has often said – “less is more, but less is also more difficult”. It’s a maxim with which I totally agree and, besides the fact that I am drawn to clean layouts, have become wholly enamored with the repeated challenge of designing white space based sites.

One factor to take into consideration regarding white space designs is that not all websites are geared towards them and that site identity should be taken into consideration. I have found, over the years, that websites that are text content heavy tend to benefit more from the implementation of white space designs, which would be why most major news sites, for the most part, employ them.

White space designs also offer other challenges, the most difficult of which is that any addition to them is usually very noticeable, making the structure of their initial design platform crucial with regards to the addition of a variety of content – specifically images, hyperlinks, and so forth.

The second challenge is content clutter. As web pages have become more diversified and complex, it is not uncommon to encounter pages that are rammed full of content that, while resourceful, is presented in an entirely confusing fashion. While a specific website might be an unbelievable web resource, if its layout is choked to death by confused content it will only detract from the ability of visitors to quickly and enjoyably explore it. That’s not to say that the diversity of content isn’t important, just that when it comes to how it’s presented there are ways to go about it that don’t automatically confuse visitors and, ultimately, turn them off visiting a site.

Dale and I have repeatedly dealt with this issue in the past given the volume of content that this website has and have struggled with how best to simplify it so that it remains inviting while still providing the ability for visitors to access its depth of content. In truth, it is a process that consumes us on a weekly basis, even though we do not implement those ideas that we frequently discuss. Today we are currently in the midst of implementing new changes that will further help to address a variety of accessibility issue, adding a simple yet comprehensive drop down menu for every header link, while at the same time generalizing them and thus reducing their number, and a more accessible and powerful search feature.

So what do I mean by confusion? Well, not to pick on a specific website, especially being that I find it a fantastic resource, Smashing Magazine provides a good example. Below is a screenshot of the Smashing Magazine website. While a clear and concise top menu is employed, the layout of the site’s content is confusing and, in my opinion, detracts from the desire of visitors to explore what it has to offer. Adverts consume the top of the site’s sidebar, detracting from the list of resources presented below them. While I understand that revenues generated by adverts are important for various sites, their dominance of a design often convolutes the website’s initial impact with regards to content.

Search Utilization

Most websites offer a dedicated search feature that, depending on its parameters, will produce in-depth results. Ironically, site based searches are commonly underused, something that I have never understood.

When it comes to website content, especially with regards to blogs, dedicated site search features are invaluable and far more affective when searching for specific content – even more so than archive features given that most sites employ dynamic categorization methods that are automatically included in dedicated site searches. That said; the dedicated site search is an invaluable tool and should be easily accessible.

As I mentioned a little earlier in this post, we are currently implementing a new search feature that will be far more predominant on the site. But the issue of content clutter can also not be overlooked when it comes to how search results are presented and how they form the beginning of the informational chain that will ultimately lead site visitors to the content that they are seeking in a quick and clutter-free way.

Here again is a screen shot from Smashing Magazine that shows how its search results are displayed. The site employs an embedded Google Search, which isn’t uncommon as many sites use it to increase their standings in broader Google searches with regards to various topics that relate to them. My focus is on how the results are ultimately displayed with regards to clarity and ease of usability…

Notice how the search result text is cut off by the sidebar, as indicated by the red arrow. Also notice that the search results are confusingly preceded by the inclusion of adverts as well.

Hey! It’s My Day Off!

Anyway, back to enjoying my day off. We’ll be working on implementing the changes I mentioned earlier this evening, and, over the next few days, will make sure to post an entry outlining all of them.

June 1, 2008 36 Comments

It’s almost noon, which means only four more hours until the puck drops in Montreal. How I am going to pass those four hours I don’t know.

After returning home some weeks ago I realized something about my apartment. The concrete floors, like hardwood floors, collect dust at an alarming rate. You could vacuum and dust this place on a daily basis only for it to end up in the exact same state the next afternoon. Meanwhile, you’re breathing all of it in, which, if you’re allergic to dust, makes your sinuses very unhappy.

For years I’ve had to sleep with a fan next to the bed for two reasons. One – the noise it produces drowns out the ringing in my ears. Two – I get hot really easily and can’t stand sleeping in a warm room. Unfortunately, because the fan is pointed at the bed, dust particles are probably being pumped through it, meaning that while I’m sleeping I’m getting a healthy dose of dust – fantastic.

My brain has felt like scrambled eggs for weeks. It’s been hard to concentrate, hard to work, hard to read. I find myself obsessively cleaning, folding laundry, opening recording sessions only to have the feeling of ‘I don’t feel like doing this right now’ pass over me. The same goes for writing for the site, actually.

In truth, that’s one of the reasons we tend to make so many graphic changes around here – because it gives me something to do that isn’t focused on my job or the weight of the world. I suppose that’s why I’ve come to envy blogs and sites that aren’t so serious, because writing them must be a ton of fun every day. After a while, writing about music and geopolitics can get to you, I’ll be the first to admit it. The latter of the two tends to cause a great deal of blog fatigue, even to the extent that I’ll read a great deal every day but fail to even bother posting links to those things that I have read to my del.icio.us page, which is something that I have done on a routine basis for some years now.

In a way I miss being on the road. Out there you know what’s going on, what you have to do, and what your day’s going to be like. Having no real connections at home, beyond the dogs and my immediate family, it’s become something that I miss. While I tend to be somewhat of a homebody while at home, there’s something about being constantly on the move that I miss when I’m not doing it.

Anyway, four hours to kill before game 5.

April 17, 2008 89 Comments