UXtraordinary original design
Clearly this has been updated, but the original design had some interesting navigational and typographic elements. At this time UXtraordinary was a live prototype of sorts, where I played with and tested typography, navigational design, and more.
Screen shots
Look, Ma, no site map! The idea that good navigational scent should remove the need for a user site map is one I’m aggressively pursuing on UXtraordinary. Note how position and color are used to cue the reader to their location in the screen shots below.
A partial capture of a post, showing a pull quote:
Block quotes:
Design notes
Some highlights:
- I’m having fun with CSS-driven typography. Note the inline pull quotes and titles.
- A favorite tool of mine for some time: Persistent (always on) navigation, also called sticky navigation. I first began doing this in JavaScript back in 2002, then switched to CSS a couple of years later, as soon as I realized the JavaScript links weren’t crawlable.
- Color palette aims at a clean, warm look and feel.
- Navigational cues are provided through the left-hand menu. Currently I’m testing a friend’s idea to float the navigation for the displayed content to the top, but I’m not certain I like the results thus far.
- Links to related categories are also offered at the bottom of the page.
what, where, & when
Blogger, webmaster
UXtraordinary (UXtraordinary.com)
Seattle, WA
2009-present
keywords
UX, content strategy, navigation refresh, IA (information architecture), usability, typography, SEO (search engine optimization), branding, writing, user-centered design, usability, Adobe PhotoShop, Adobe Illustrator, OmniGraffle, JavaScript, jQuery, typography, web analytics, social media.
