Cognicology re-revamp, wireframes and smashing books
It’s been pretty hectic with the PhD and Cognicology.com this month: I’m trying to wrangle a trip over to the states in January for a conference related to my PhD, which has taken a fair amount of my time. It is amazing the loops you need to jump through to organise this sort of thing. Between trying to secure a talking position, apply for travel funding and contacting other institutes to visit and talk sciencey things with, I’ve been kept pretty busy. Adding to that, Alborz and I have also been pretty busy with organising and preparing videos for the Cognicology.com site which has been a blast. As exciting as my day-to-day life is (assuming exciting is a relative measure, and you consider paint drying to be an extreme sport) it isn’t really the reason for this post.
The new Cognicology.com design has been up for about a month now, and whilst the design is a definite improvement over the last design, it still isn’t our ideal layout. I actually had a meeting with Al today about the design of the site and we’ve both come to the conclusion that we want something that is a little more ‘full and exciting’ and a lot less minimalist. At around the same time as we’ve been thinking and discussing this, I’ve been following the blog of Smashing Magazine which has some great in-depth articles revolving around online design. I first found Smashing Magazine when I stumbled upon their great collection of monthly desktop wallpaper calendars during one of my procrastinatory searches for an inspirational (and anti-procrastinatory) desktop image. I mention these guys because by chance they have published a great article on the wireframing stage of web design projects.
I’ve knocked up a quick wireframe outline for a possible new Cognicology.com web layout. We will pass it on to the peeps we know in the business and get comments/ideas from them on what they think of the arrangement of elements.
The other cool thing related to Smashing Magazine is that I’ve pre-ordered a copy of their upcoming book, The Smashing Book. To quote them directly:
The Smashing Book is a printed book about best practices in modern Web design. The book shares technical tips and best practices on coding, usability and optimization and explores how to create successful user interfaces and apply marketing principles to increase conversion rates. It also shows how to get the most out of typography, color and branding so that you end up with intuitive and effective Web designs. And lastly, you will also get a peek behind the curtains of Smashing Magazine.
The book is due out late September, and they are giving a pre-order discount of 20% off the price of the book. Check it out here.
Chris is a shining example of how, in a world where abortion is not as easily obtained as a leg of fried chicken, an ounce of prevention can be worth more than its weight in gold. He is currently completing a PhD in Bioinformatics which he hopes may one day help him get out of a speeding ticket.