CivicActions Launches SolveClimate.com

by | Oct 30, 2007 | Uncategorized

Last week, CivicActions launched a new website, SolveClimate.com. The site tracks solutions to climate change. Not little stuff like changing light bulbs, but the big solutions that will have immediate and measurable impact on the pollution causing climate change: green building codes, carbon caps, increased fuel economy. The premise of the project is that American’s are really all in this together. While we might find ourselves in specific constituency groups: young people, farmers, architects and builders, etc… based on our demographics, occupations, interests and beliefs, we really do have common ground when it comes to climate change and we – and the politicians – need to realize that. SolveClimate.com covers climate change news and related it to a set of high level solutions and a select number of constituency groups, and the leading presidential candidates. Users can signup for the site and subscribe to email updates based on taxonomy terms, or simply subscribe to rss feeds. The site offers 3: one for daily headlines about climate change, another for the blog and a third for some comic relief (blog posts on the lighter side). In addition to the constantly updated content on the site, there are also explanations of the key solutions to climate change, profiles of the candidates and background information about the constituency groups. There is also a “Jargon Watch” glossary of terms and links to...

Yes Virginia, there is a perfect web page

by | Oct 26, 2007 | Uncategorized

Last night I attended a talk by Steve Krug (Don’t Make me THINK) hosted by the Puget Sound SigCHI group. Krug’s talk, a new one, was titled, “Yes, Virginia, there is a perfect web page” He focused on 2 design conventions that he believes make web pages inherently better. And while both are pretty easy to get right, he believed that designers rarely do. These two things break down (he wasn’t as clear as one would have thought since he was pretty adament that there were really only two) into: “You are here” indicators Clear page titles The you are here indicators closely relate to good global navigation. Ways to indicate “you are here” something is in the global navigation to show you where you are. Bolder Larger Point at it Different Color Background color Reverse text/background color Indent Borders/rules Combination of the above On average, users miss most design subtleties most of the time. However designers love subtle visual effects and consider them to be hallmarks of sophisticated design. If it is important for users to notice distinctions in order to successfully use the site, the design indicators cannot be subtle. These design elements have to be “louder” than you would think or would like. “You are here” indicators are important and even good designers forget to put them in, or don’t put them in because they think they will clutter, or they put them in and make them subtle, but users miss subtle destinctions. Tabs make good “you are here indicators” especially when the active tab bleeds into content space. Krug believes that this is the “right...

DrupalCon Barcelona 2007: Drupal User Group Session

by | Oct 4, 2007 | Uncategorized

Greg Knadson organized and lead a session on drupal user groups, I joined him in facilitating the session, and these are my rough notes from the session. * about a 3rd of people fit into each category (organized a dug, attended a dug, never been to one) Some numbers: * san paulo dug: 5 people * hague dug: 10 * paris: one that was small * close to madrid: 3 Marketing * search for drupal and your local community. find users in your local area * advertise o groups.drupal.org o meetup.com o craigslist.org o local sites o universities o computer user email lists * specific agenda/presentation * working with an existing association that had a newsletter and a network Goal of the drupal user group * provide people who are familiar with drupal an opportunity to help each other o build the community * evangelism: spread the word * find work Audience * commercial users * newbies * hobbiests Event Content * informal get together * formal content o bug fix party o introductions, lighting talks o tutorials o site reviews + High value to flashy sites and basic ones too o Q & A o Localization Sprints * CMS Comparison Drupal Camps * usually more advanced Time and Space * Venue o Donated space o Community Centers – paid * Time o work hours? o non work hours? o weekends / weekdays problems * Develop and share presentation materials * marketing materials o brochures o buttons o shirts * coopetition: loose a bid and then help the winner next week at drupalcon * credibility: non profit credentials *...