Usability and last.fm Pt. 1
Ok, so I’ve decided to get on the last.fm boat. Why do you ask did it take me so long? Well, when I started using it again I remembered why. Simply, I don’t think I like it. I am a big fan of the Pandora project and prefer that to almost any online music application. However, I was intrigued by last.fm’s use of social integration (tagging, comments, groups, wiki) and, well, there is a widget I can use with my WordPress blog. As a new user last.fm frustrates me, I get lost within the framework and cannot find my way back to for example “my favorites”. I “heart” songs and I can’t find where to locate them again, other than the strange “playlist” feature. Furthermore the playlist feature is not a list of “my favorites” but rather a list of “some” songs I was able to add to yet another… Read More »
Inspiring Designs
Some of my recent favorites are: http://www.sachagreif.com/ – I really appreciate the subtle colors that allow the header to pop and the black text seems soothing against the pale brown background. The page is also divided into upper and lower levels, with the lower level having a design relationship with the top nav bar. The font choices are perfect and the section headers are clearly distinguishable from the body content. http://www.webdesignerwall.com/ – This one is busy done properly. That is, the busyness does not detract from the navigation or layout of the page. The paper textures throughout the design give the page a three dimensional quality. The date tabs before each entry make it very easy to navigate and quickly see where each new entry begins. The body text is not my favorite use of a serif as I prefer a cleaner san-serif for body text. However it does fit… Read More »
