AGI Training » web design

Learn web design and development skills at crē8 conference

Jeremy Osborn — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 20:42:07 +0000

This year at the crē8 conference in Miami the majority of my sessions will be focused on skills for web design and development. I’d like to think I’ve got all bases covered: the past, present and future of the web.

The Past
I’m stretching the definition of “the past” a bit , but in my session Styling Text for the Web Using CSS, I will talk about how you can take the traditional typographic techniques you might be very familiar with in print (such as leading and kerning) and translate them to the Web using Cascading Style Sheets. I’ll also take a quick look at Web Fonts, which are a new and exciting development allowing web designers to use more and higher quality fonts than ever before.

The Present
Dreamweaver is the world’s most popular WSYWIG web editor and Adobe seems committed to updating it as quickly as possible in order to keep up with the rapidly changing world of the web. In my session What’s New in Dreamweaver CS 5.5, I discuss and demonstrate new features largely relating to mobile design. I’ll spend a fair amount of time talking about the Multiscreen Preview which helps you design pages for mobile phone and tablet devices.

The Future
Take a thrilling look into where the Web is headed. HTML5 and CSS3 are where you’ll be spending some time with me in my session Future of the Web:HTML5. Here, you’ll take a look at features that can be used today to make websites and web applications more useful and visually interesting such as Geolocation and Web Fonts. You’ll also see the more experimental and evolving features that aren’t ready to be used today, but might be a part of your web future!

Using HTML5 wisely

Jeremy Osborn — Fri, 18 Nov 2011 21:57:58 +0000

The attention given to HTML5 in the last year is well-deserved. Despite the jockeying for a competitive advantage in the marketplace, the major players (Google, Apple, Microsoft, Mozilla and Adobe among others) have committed to the road map of HTML5 support. As important as this support is, if you are preparing to jump headfirst into developing HTML5 websites and/or applications there are some important considerations to keep in mind. HTML5 is still an evolving language and until the specification is finalized there may be some surprises still in store, and not necessarily the “good” kind of surprise.

The web community was reminded of this in the beginning of November when news began to emerge that the new HTML5 element was being pulled from the HTML5 specification. This element was among many new elements that have been introduced since development of HTML5 began in 2004. The news came as a surprise to many designers and developers (particularly those who had used the element in completed projects).

The essence of the matter is this: the element was intended to tag HTML content that included the date and time for any reason: a blog post, or the time an article was posted or any other scenario where the time was important enough to warrant being tagged. I’m not going to explore why this happened here (although if you are interested in learning more, there are many places to look), I’m more interested in the fact that it happened at all.

The fact is, the language of HTML5 is still being defined. Although the majority of the new elements are here to stay and there will unlikely be many new elements being added, the dropping of the element is a good reminder that the use of HTML5 requires some caution and attention to detail. It is a delicate balance to walk: builders of next generation websites want new tools in order to create new experiences for users, but these tools don’t just get dropped into our laps. They emerge slowly and come into focus over time, hopefully based on community consensus. Ultimately, I believe this will make the foundation of HTML5 stronger than anything we have seen up to this point, but until the day the specification is finalized, keep a close eye on what’s happening!

Adobe discontinues development of mobile Flash

Jeremy Osborn — Fri, 11 Nov 2011 21:22:01 +0000

On November 9, Adobe announced that it was discontinuing development of the mobile version of the Flash Player for smartphones and tablets. What does this mean for the web in general and more importantly what does this mean for web designers and developers?

Let’s take a step back and review the primary role of Flash in the year 2011, primarily we see Flash on the web being used for: a.) Web video, b.) Multimedia content such as web banners, games, interactive charts/graphs and c.) Rich Internet Applications embedded within web pages (examples include anything from music players to financial applications.) On the desktop, Flash requires a browser plugin to deliver all of this content and the plugin has had incredible success over the years, with the vast majority of web browsers having some version of the plugin installed.

Translating desktop success to mobile proved to be much more difficult for Adobe. Apple’s Steve Jobs famously spoke out against Flash in 2010, claiming that tests of the technology resulted in poorer performance on the iPhone (among other things) and made it publicly clear that Flash would likely never be supported on Apple iOS devices. Although mobile versions of Flash are supported on the latest Android devices, the widespread popularity of Apple devices must have contributed to Adobe’s decision to discontinue development of mobile Flash (although they will continue to support existing versions).

Another factor in Adobe’s decision is the rise of HTML5, a collection of new features and technology for the Web. Many of the features that Flash has come to stand for (see above) can be accomplished with HTML5, which does not require a browser plugin and is not a proprietary technology but one based on web standards and not owned by anybody. So web video and audio, animation (using both the new Canvas API as well as CSS), and many other features can now be built with a combination of HTML, CSS and JavaScript and work just as well on a mobile device as it does on the desktop.

For designers and developers, the path now could not be more clear: if you are interested in creating content for mobile devices then HTML5 is one of the main roads to take. Another main road is the development of native applications for mobile devices, which Adobe also has a stake in with Adobe Air and their popular applications Flash Professional and Dreamweaver.

Adobe’s decision to focus on HTML5 for mobile is a good thing for all of us in this continually evolving industry. The major players on the Web including Google, Microsoft, Apple and many others, have all put their support behind HTML5 and this means designers and developers can get down to the important business of creating great content without having to worry about which technology they are choosing.

How does HTML5 fit in the mobile device landscape?

Jeremy Osborn — Thu, 12 May 2011 13:05:50 +0000

Native apps for mobile devices such as the iPhone, iPad, Windows Phone 7 and Android devices have received a great deal of attention recently, and for good reason, they represent a new way to interact online and the best apps use device features such as cameras and GPS in ways that you can’t easily duplicate on your desktop or laptops. So where does HTML5 fit in the picture? Should companies and designers create native applications or web applications? Do they need to create both? The answers to these questions can get complex and there is no easy answer, however these are some benefits to building web applications in HTML5:

The capabilities and performance of HTML5 applications is quickly catching up to native applications. The ability to create animations, animated CSS transitions and delver multimedia content in HTML5 is a huge benefit . Although native applications have the edge at the moment, the state of the art in HTML5 web applications is being advanced daily by designers and developers worldwide.
HTML5 leverages the fundamental simplicity of the web browser. Chances are most users do not have a fraction of the apps created by Fortune 500 companies on their phones and/or tablets. Yet with a web browser, every Fortune 500 company is immediately accessible. Apps are of no use if they are never installed and as apps (and companies) begin to compete with each other for space on the user’s device, the simplicity of the browser is appealing.
Developing for multiple platforms/devices. Although ensuring that HTML5 applications look and work the same across muitple devices is by no means a piece of cake, it is much easier (and less expensive) to do than trying to develop native apps across the major mobile platforms.

These are just a few of the reasons why HTML5 applications will become increasingly more popular for delivering web content in the months and years to come.

Adobe Flash CS 5.5 Review

agi — Wed, 27 Apr 2011 15:32:59 +0000

Our review of Flash CS5.5 found that they’ve added more new features to Flash CS 5.5 than most of the other CS 5.5 products, but nothing worthy of a paid upgrade. For example, Adobe added auto-save capabilities to Flash CS 5.5. This is something that’s been available in much older print publishing software like QuarkXPress for 15 years – and Adobe is just now delivering this “feature” to their supposedly cutting-edge application? And Adobe wants customers to pay for the ability to recover from bugs in their software that cause crashes? It’s not that Flash CS 5.5 is without other new capabilities, though. They’ve added the ability to export to the latest AIR versions – which would be great if anyone actually used AIR. The ability to copy and paste layers is a nice addition, as is the ability to share symbols across files – but it’s ridiculous that you couldn’t do this previously. Adobe has also added some code snippets and the ability to preview the snippets, and made some changes to the Publish settings window.
The really crazy thing is that Adobe is still thinking that developers will use their Flash program to develop for mobile and then put apps through their meat-grinder to deliver to other platforms like iOS. They are also thinking that developers will create Flash apps targeting mobile – which isn’t going to happen. Our developer customers continue to reject this approach in favor of native development to target a specific platform. We believe this approach should continue, as Flash and AIR simply add an artificial layer between the device’s operating system and the user. Our verdict for Flash users: don’t bother upgrading to CS 5.5 unless you are using Flash CS 3 or earlier.

Dreamweaver CS 5.5 Review

agi — Tue, 26 Apr 2011 15:43:10 +0000

Dreamweaver CS 5.5 LiveView and Design View are updated to provide more accurate previews. While it is good to see this enhancement, we think this should have been a free patch update to CS 5. Live preview is needed to remain competitive with other available web design tools like Microsoft’s Expression Web which includes SuperPreview to get a better understanding of what a website will look like on multiple devices. Dreamweaver also improved their JavaScript support, especially around jQuery. As most of our customers that use the Adobe Creative Suite are designers and not developers, we don’t see this as being so significant to warrant our customers to purchase or deploy The Creative Suite 5.5 version of Dreamweaver. Adobe is indicating that bugs have been fixed – while this is great, it’s absurd they would charge for this. Our verdict after reviewing Dreamweaver CS 5.5: Most users shouldn’t bother upgrading to Dreamweaver CS 5.5.

Creative economy showing signs of stabilization

Christopher Smith — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 05:26:18 +0000

Headlines make it appear that the creative market is in a freefall. Layoffs at agencies, newspapers and magazines closing their doors, even online advertising has taken a hit. But digging a bit deeper, there are some reasons to be optimistic.
Publicis Groupe, the parent of many large agencies, reported this week a drop in profits that is close to 10%, and revenue for all businesses dropped from $6.5 Billion to $6.2 Billion – a $300 million drop. But the good news is that their CEO is indicating that their business is recovering, and that they expect to see revenue growth in 2010. The slowing rate of decline is being reported by their peers at Omnicom and Havas, and recent forecasts from Interpublic are pointing towards a recovery in ad spending later this year.
AOL, in the middle of a major rebranding and conversion to a media company, reported a decline in online advertising revenue last quarter that was only in the single digits – but they were profitable and made over $1M in profits after losing $1.96 Billion, with a B, in the same period last year. They’re still predicting declines in ad revenues through the end of the year, and – no surprise here – even larger losses of subscription revenue.
Ad pages placed in magazines are still declining, but it is now in the single digits. The good news is that nearly one-third of publications are seeing an increase in advertising pages, and those that are succeeding and profitable are implementing multi-platform strategies to reach their audiences via mobile, on-line, and in print.
Overall, the signs are looking more positive for the creative economy for 2010. While this may not lead to more hiring or more tech spending, it is showing a return towards normalcy.

Microsoft Mix: Thoughts and impressions for the creative, design, & marketing community

Christopher Smith — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 18:07:07 +0000

Microsoft has made some pretty significant announcement here in Las Vegas today that will impact the way you communicate on-line, develop Web and interactive content – and event how you think about what is on-line and what is a desktop application…

Silverlight 3 was announced here and has some technical features that are useful for developers -things like GPU acceleration and support for additional CODECs such as H.264, MPG 4, and AAC but the real mind-blowing things revolutionize the user experience:

Live streaming with full DVR-like controls – pause / slow motion / rewind for live streams. This puts Silverlight live streaming miles ahead of anything else. NBC announced they are renewing their use of Silverlight for all streaming of the next Olympics (Vancouver) using Silverlight.
HD streaming – you’ll see this at the next Olympics as they’ll be streaming all content in HD.
Out-of-browser experiences on Mac and Windows – not just a browser plug-in
Off-line support: Silverlight 3.0 applications can run as stand-alone applications. So they can consume services while connected, and then switch to an “off-line” mode when not connected.
Support for multi-touch – like the “pinch” – think Minority Report or iPhone

I’ll have more updates throughout the event… as I’m at a Microsoft-focused event, most of my posts will focus on their technology this week…