clips of logic

Even though I spend most of my professional career as a software developer, I do have interest in web design. I have also done some design work for clients and Flexnode‘s own sites. Since I couldn’t get someone else to present at Webcamp KK so I decided to try it myself.

Here are the slides and a ton of useful links for web design. I’m glad I decided to do this because of the sheer amount of things I’ve learned in the process. Hopefully, you’ll find something useful here.

You can also download the pdf version of the slides.

Links and Resources

CSS / Layouts

• Bootstrap from Twitter
• Blueprint CSS
• Golden Grid System
• Simplebits.com – Awesome Fluid Layout

Typography/Fonts

• Google Fonts
• Typekit
• Smashing Magazine Typography guide
• FontsInUse
• Lettering.js
• FitText
• HTML ipsum
• Elysium Burns
• A List Apart
• CreativeMornings

Whitespace

• Whitespace – A List Apart
• Whitespace and Simplicity : An Overview - Smashing Magazine
• I Love Typography

Colors

• ColourLovers.com
• Color Wheel
• Color Theory- Color Matters
• Color Theory for Designers – Smashing Magazine
• Hershey’s Website

Graphics

• Make Faces - tap tap tap
• Florida Flourish
• Highrise - 37signals
• Famfamfam Icon Packs
• iStockPhoto

Information Software Design

• Magic Ink - Bret Victor
• Showtimes.my

User Experience (UX)

• What is User Experience Design? – Smashing Magazine
• 10 Most common misconception about User Experience Design – Mashable
• User Experience Design – Peter Morville
• UX Myths
• Why User Experience cannot be designed? – Smashing Magazine
• Behind the Scenes : A/B Testing – 37Signals
• 15 examples of addictive user experience - Design Shack
• Smiley goes public – 37signals
• Balsamiq Mockups
• Optimizely
• KISSMetrics
• Usabilla
• Flipboard
• Panic

Others

• iCloud logo infused with Golden Ratio
• Behance
• Swiss Miss
• Alertbox – Current issue in web usability
• Make Awesome Web
• 35 High Quality PSD UI Web Design Elements
• Responsive Web Design Techniques - Smashing Magazine
• Form Design – Seth Godin

After about 8 months into this year (2011), it feels that we at Flexnode did a lot of stuff but yet seems like we aren’t really moving forward. Here’s a short recap for 2011 so far.

• StartNOW – We envisioned it to be an online community for entrepreneurs, visionaries and action takers. Maybe the features on the site is too confusing or doesn’t fit the target audience. Or could be that we need to find ways to seed content to the site and make it useful. Right now, the site is practically dead. For now we are trying to form an offline community first and see what’s needed there.
• Showtimes.my – So far, it’s been a rather good year for our movie showtimes site. We added a mobile version and favourite cinemas feature.
• Showtimes.my iPhone app – We spent a few months getting into iOS development to try to build an iPhone version of Showtimes. We got a prototype built but it’s still very far from what we have planned it to be. So meanwhile, we made a mobile site first.
• Ok.Bah.my – This is more like a pet project to mimic lolcats. The idea is basically to seed the site with funny pics that aims to cheer you up if you are having a bad day. Haven’t really put much effort into promoting it yet. Might pivot into something else.
• Webcamp KK – As mentioned above, we figured we needed to form an offline community to find out more about how it works and what it needs. The first Webcamp was awesome and hopefully we can keep this up. It’s nice to have a local support group for web enthusiasts in Kota Kinabalu.
• Idea on Permission Marketing – Back in July, we pitched this idea at NINA (incubator/startup event) here in Kota Kinabalu. Our aim was really to gain more experience in pitching our ideas. It was a good try and we are currently considering whether to pursue the idea or not.
• Revamp Flexnode.com – All this while we never had a proper company site so this year we took some time to put one up that is at least presentable.

There’s still 4 months left before the year is over and hopefully there will be more awesome stuff in store for us. The next 2 months will be exciting as we are going to work with a client in KL on an interesting project.

How’s the year been treating you so far?

Andrew Warner of Mixergy interviewed KISSMetrics CEO, Hiten Shah on his experience launching products and some action points on how to create a minimum viable product to test your ideas.

Here are the 10 Actions Points by Hiten:

1. First write down your assumptions.
2. Then survey and interview potential customers.
3. Look for patterns in their responses.
4. Build your Minimum Viable Product.
5. Don’t worry about the ghetto launch.
6. Look for early adopters who would accept flaws.
7. Get feedback on your launch.
8. Pivot, if you need to.
9. Don’t worry about the competition.
10. Discover your mistakes early.

Go to this page to grab a copy of the PDF containing the entire interview. Trust me, it’s worth your time.

For those of you who are addicted to self-employment and solving problems to make a living, here are some interesting lessons and tips.

1. Passion – We all know how important passion is as a driving force for anything you do. But your passion can also be your business greatest weapon. Jonathan Betz makes an interesting point where the founder’s passion can make a huge difference.
2. Find (and solve) problems that others have ignored – Quote from Intuit’s co-founder Scott Cook in an interview about how they built Quicken and Quickbooks.  This should be obvious but it’s worth reminding that unless your product solves a real problem, it’s not a business.
3. Test your idea first - It’s very common for you to want to jump in and start working on your idea right away but you should test it out first. Test if there’s a market and if anyone would pay for it. What Buffer app did to test their idea is something we should all learn from.
4. Advertising isn’t a business model for everyone – The idea of starting a site and slapping Google Adsense to make a quick buck sounds easy and attractive but it isn’t viable for everyone. Advertising is only valuable when a user arrives at your site with an intent to buy/search for something. Read this post on how the position of your product/site in the customer’s decision process makes a big difference. Ideally, you’ll want to be first in the process like Google/Facebook/Twitter.
5. Patient for growth, impatient for profit - Clayton Christensen said in his book, Innovator’s Solution that there are good money and bad money. Businesses should become profitable before they become big. Raising money to grow and scale before finding a solid foundation for profit can be very dangerous. This is exactly what’s happening with Groupon.

Last night, we had our very first Webcamp KK and surprisingly about 30 people attended.  Although mostly dominated by developers and programmers, we had some photographers, designers, bloggers and marketers in the mix. My hope is that eventually we will be able get a better mix of web professionals together to share and create awesome stuff.

For those who missed the event, check out the slides:-

I consider this event a success and hopefully we will be able to keep the momentum going. As I said to attendees of Webcamp, I want everyone to gather together to not just share their knowledge or expertise but also lend their hand in creating and building awesome work/projects. I hope it will be more than just a gathering but also a catalyst for cool and exciting projects between the community.

If you are interested in Webcamp KK, check out our Facebook group. Webcamp KK will be held on the first Tuesday of every month. Come join us!