Harleys and Ducatis and Hondas, Oh My!

by Stacy B on November 20, 2010

I visited the Barber Vintage Motorsports Museum for the first time, and I must say, I was absolutely blown away. Even if you are not a motorcycle or car buff, you will be able to appreciate this amazing collection that is like none other in the world. Here are some more details about it from their website.

“Barber Vintage Motorsports Museum is home to the world’s best motorcycle collection. We are dedicated to the presentation, interpretation, exhibition and history of motorcycles, vintage vehicles and motorsports.

The collection now has over 1,200 vintage and modern motorcycles as well as a substantial collection of Lotus and other racecars. The collection is the largest of its kind in the world.

There are approximately 600 of the 1,200 motorcycles on display at any given time. These bikes range from 1902 to current-year production. The common street bike is represented, as well as rare one-off Gran Prix race machinery.”

Here are some of my favorite photos that I took during my visit. Enjoy!

Barber Vintage Motorsports Museum

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User-Centered Web Design

by Stacy B on May 22, 2010

The 5 UX Planes

What is User-centered web design and why is it important? The answer to the first question has a simple answer, but the process of making it happen is fairly complex. User-centered web design involves taking the user into account during all phases of a web project. Why is this so important? The process of building a user-centered website ensures that everything that happens on the site is a direct result of decisions you have made. Not only will you reduce the likelihood of technical errors like 404 pages and broken links, you can create a quality experience that will satisfy both the business and user's goals.

Now that we know what user-centered design is, how do we go about it? The best way to explain the process is to use the model developed by user experience expert, Jesse James Garrett. Garrett breaks up the model into 5 planes in his book, The Elements of User Experience: User-Centered Design for the Web. The 5 planes are strategy, scope, structure, skeleton and surface. This model also addresses the duality of website functionality. Some websites are used as software interfaces, while others are hypertext information spaces. And then there are some websites that perform both of these functions. This is why there is a line drawn down the middle of the model to deal with those differences. Let's go into a little more detail about the 5 planes.

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Birmingham Botanical Gardens Promenade

April 17, 2010

I cannot believe I am going to admit this, but until last weekend I had never been to the Birmingham Botanical Gardens. As a Birmingham, Alabama native that seems pretty hard to believe, but it’s true. Now that I have been, I definitely plan on going back. I can appreciate their description of the Gardens [...]

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What is a Web Designer Anyway?

March 9, 2010

I have been pondering over this question for a couple of weeks now. In fact, I made a new friend last week who is a web designer/developer and during our conversation he asked me the question, “What do you think the definition of a web designer is?” While I do not claim to have all [...]

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Wallpaper Featured in Smashing Magazine

January 31, 2010

As you may or may not know, Smashing Magazine is a wonderful resource for design, web design, inspiration, freebies, tutorials and more. I decided to give the Monthly Desktop Wallpaper Contest another try this month. They feature around 40 or so each month from around the world, and I am most happy to say that [...]

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Jellyfish Are Photogenic (who knew?)

December 29, 2009

Michael Zhang (@petapixel) runs a wonderful photography blog geared towards digital photographers called PetaPixel. A few days ago, he tweeted a link to a post on COLOURlovers entitled, “Color In Nature: Surprisingly Colorful Jellyfish” which showcased some absolutely stunning photographs of jellyfish. After viewing all of the jellyfish photos featured in the post, I was [...]

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