Mack's Blog

AJAX Research

macklucas — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 16:43:16 +0000

The Ajax Construction Kit taught me a lot of great things such as auto-completing the content of a search-box, create a rating system, and determining shipping costs based on location and price of certain mail carriers. After completing the book, it was clear that Ajax was a very powerful tool in web development when it comes to adding interactivity to a web site.

In search of more functions Ajax can provide, I came across this site: http://www.designvitality.com/blog/2007/10/43-exceptionally-useful-ajax-applications/. It is a list of 43 diverse Ajax applications to serve a wide range of purposes. One that interested me was an Ajax poll, that took the opinions of users and recorded them. Another one was amCharts which created a clean data driven pie chart to display the relationships between certain objects. The last application I will mention is the ability to create chat boxes with Ajax. This allows for users to talk to each other through instant messaging while browsing your site. Now that’s pretty interactive. It’s pretty amazing what we can already do with websites, It will definitely be interesting to see what it looks like in ten years.

Customer Service in the web

macklucas — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 16:22:28 +0000

Just like any other business customer service is the key to success as a web designer. It is impossible to keep customers coming back or even paying in the first place if the level of work isn’t what the customer expects. A fencer must be able to build a stable, durable, and good looking fence for their customers. The same thing goes for web design; to keep customers happy, a designer must be able to build a functional and good looking website that will attract business. If this isn’t accomplished, customers will look elsewhere if they ever need another website created.

Compassionate Web Design???

macklucas — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 20:58:28 +0000

I, like probably most other students was a little bit confused about what exactly compassion had in common with web design. So, i decided to pull out my good ol’ Dictionary.com to get an exact definition of the word compassion and then compare that with my knowledge of web design. This is what I found: “a feeling of deep sympathy and sorrow for another who is stricken by misfortune, accompanied by a strong desire to alleviate the suffering”. After reading that I was a little bit more confused than before. I had no idea how these two subjects had in common whatsoever. Web design isn’t exactly a charity service.

I suppose web designers have taken steps to make web pages more easy for people with disabilities to view web pages. Web standards have allowed disabled people to access the web and get information more easily than they could by other means. Other than that I’m not totally certain about what compassionate web design is.

Any ideas?

Goal Setting

macklucas — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 17:55:04 +0000

Goal setting is a critical element to success within any part of life. Without thinking through a realistic set of goals, a person has no real guidelines to gauge the success they have achieved. With goals, people become self motivated to reach the benchmarks that they have set for themselves and in turn, become a more accomplished person.

Within the field of web design and development, goal setting is just as important as it is for any other aspect of life. A web designer needs to have a strong set of goals to establish excellence if they wish to become an accomplished designer. To establish excellence, a web designer needs to always be alert of new technologies and idea concepts that will aid them in the creation of web sites. A web designer should always have an open mind to learning more about the web; whether that be a new language or a new concept of design. Discussion with other experts in the web field is also a must. Collecting the opinions and design concepts of other designers will allow for a wider base of knowledge and ideas to draw from when creating a web site. By doing these things, a web designer will have everything it takes to achieve the goals that they have set for themselves.