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!

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.

Strategy seeks to address the answers to 2 basic questions. What do we want to get out of the site and what do our users want to get out of it? By answering the first question we are describing the site objectives from within our organization. The answers to the second question address user needs which are objectives that come from outside our organization. The strategy is the foundation for next 4 planes and will drive our decisions throughout the rest of the process.

The scope involves creating the functional specifications (i.e. contact forms, search capability, shopping cart), and content requirements (i.e. text, images, and PDF’s) for the site. By defining these requirements up front, you take the guesswork out of the development process. Garrett states that the two main reasons for writing all this down and agreeing to the scope before you begin allows you to know what you are building and what you are not building. This sounds so simple, right? It's not always easy to get everyone to agree to a scope, and when you don't you will most certainly have to deal with the dreaded “scope creep”. By establishing the scope, you can be realistic about what you can accomplish within a given time frame and all parties involved will be informed about what to expect.

The next phase of site development involves creating the structure of the site. On the “web as a hypertext system” side of development this is also referred to as information architecture. Information architects are looking for the best way to organize, group and present the content of a site to the end user. On the “web as a software interface” side it is called interaction design. Interaction design is concerned with describing possible user behavior and defining how the system will accommodate and respond to the user. For example, what happens when a user incorrectly fills out a form field? Will the field prompt them with an example of what it's looking for? Will it force them to enter only certain characters? These are the types of questions that interaction design will establish the answers to before coding begins.

The skeleton plane is where we take all of the information we gathered from the previous planes and begin to lay out our site. The development of the skeleton involves three elements that are closely bound together: interface design (on the “software interface” side), navigation design (on the “hypertext system” side) and information design that spans across both sides. Interface design refers to the user's ability to do things on the site. Navigation design refers to the user's ability to go places on the site and information design refers to how you communicate ideas to the user. If you have seen a website wire frame then you have a good idea of what the skeleton looks like when all three elements of the plane are brought together. It's the organization of our interface, navigation and information into logical blocks.

At the top of the model is the surface plane. This is where content, functionality and aesthetics come together to produce the visual design that combines all the elements we researched and documented from the other 4 planes. Visual design is not just a matter of aesthetics. Instead of determining the merit of your visual design solely by what is pleasing to the eye, you should ask yourself the question, how well does this work? Does the visual design make clear distinctions between the sections of information, or is it confusing? Does the visual design properly communicate what we want about the navigation? The visual design should reinforce the objectives that were established in the lower planes (strategy, scope, structure & skeleton). Garrett says it best, “It's not just a matter of aesthetics, it's a matter of strategy.”

I hope you enjoyed this breakdown of Garrett's Elements of User Experience model and if you are into building websites, I would highly recommend reading his book. Even though it was first printed in 2002, the information is still relevant and valuable today.

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 as, “Alabama’s largest living museum”. It is truly a sublime destination. You cannot beat the price (free), and they have more than just 10,000 different plants in its living collections. They also have a cafe, library and a gift shop.

Since I knew this trip to the Gardens would be an excellent photo opportunity I brought my camera along. I hope my photos from the day give you an idea of what kind of experience the Birmingham Botanical Gardens provides. Enjoy!

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 the right answers, I think I have come up with a couple of definitions and these are what I shared with my new friend last week. I think there are two types of web designers. There are those who have a background in traditional (i.e. print) design who have learned the basics of how the web works. They have taken the time to learn about the implications of user interface design, screen resolutions and browser inconsistencies to name a few. I do believe to be a truly effective web designer, having a grasp of the basics will go a long way in creating not only a beautiful website, but a functional one as well.

The other type of web designer is someone who can both design and write HTML and CSS. I have seen them referred to as a front-end developer or hybrid on various places around the interwebs. These people create a website design in PhotoShop (or design program of choice) and can then “translate” that document from an image file to code. In fact there is a very lively debate in the Communication Arts group over on LinkedIn about whether or not these type of people exist. I think there is plenty of proof that hybrids do, in fact, exist. I offer up these examples of people who do both (design and code) very well: Veerle Pieters, Chris Coyer, Jason Santa Maria and Elliot Jay Stocks to name a few.

All of this is to say that just thinking about this discussion inspired me to create 4 wallpapers that relate to the question at hand. I hope you enjoy the wallpapers, and If you have a different definition I would love to know what you think. Like I said, I don’t have all the answers, and much like the web itself the definition of a web designer is always evolving.

You can download the wallpapers here:
Click on the size you want below, and then right click on the image to save to your computer.

1920×1200 | 1680×1050 | 1280×800

1920×1200 | 1680×1050 | 1280×800

1920×1200 | 1680×1050 | 1280×800

1920×1200 | 1680×1050 | 1280×800

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 my submission was one of the ones chosen for February 2010.

The post featuring my wallpaper and many other feb-tastic wallpapers can be found here.

You can also download the wallpaper here:
with calendar: 1024×768, 1280×800, 1280×1024, 1440×900, 1680×1050, 1920×1200
without calendar: 1024×768, 1280×800, 1280×1024, 1440×900, 1680×1050, 1920×1200

I also wanted to add that I just finished reading The Smashing Book a couple of weeks ago. It is a very inspiring and well thought out book. There are tons of insights provided by people who are the best of the best in the web design/development field. You hear from people like Veerle Pieters, Chris Coyier, Elliot Jay Stocks, Jon Hicks, Jason Santa Maria, and… you get the idea! I love the fact that Sven Lennartz and Vitaly Friedman took the time to make this book a complete work unto itself. One of the things I dislike about web design books is the endless list of links to "read more", or "get more detail" about what you are reading. I like the fact that I don't have to put The Smashing Book down, and open up a web page to finish the author's thought process. If Smashing Magazine decides to publish another book, I will be sure to make another "smashing" purchase.