We all know it… it’s been a common accepted fact for far too long. We’ve been talking about the lack of interest from app developers at a regular local meet-up and decided it was about time we did something positive about it.
Project Meteor is a campaign for the web design app we all need, if you agree that current tools don’t cut it – visit the site and add your voice to the campaign by tweeting for the cause.
As a one time evangelist of Flash it’s interesting to see new tools floating to the surface over the course of the past few months. As browsers become more capable of delivering animation and effects without the need for plug-ins like the Adobe Flash Player I think this market will become increasingly competitive.
I’ve not had a chance to sit down and look at any of these tools in earnest, indeed some of them are not even available to download yet but I thought it would be worth creating a brief list and adding to it as time goes by. For now at least here’s the current crop of HTML5/CSS3 animation tools which I’ve stumbled across:
It will be interesting to see how these applications develop over the coming months and whether any on them particular gain traction with the community as the ‘go to’ tool for online animation, just as Flash did back in it’s glory days. Let me know if you’ve seen a tool that I’ve missed and I’ll add it to the list! :)
The fact that just over a month after switching from Santander to HSBC I’m already compiling a list of annoyances with their ‘online’ banking system says something I guess. Maybe I’m a bit of a moaner or maybe I just expected more from someone that claims their online banking system is ‘award winning’.
- Standing Orders: Don’t be fooled in to thinking that you are actually adding, editing and deleting your standing orders ‘online’. The reality is that changes are not live despite what the online banking interface might lead you to believe. The reality is that an email request is sent to some chap somewhere is HSBC and he manually processes these requests as and when he’s at his desk. Heaven forbid you might want to change a standing order on a weekend or any other time when ‘stand order man’ is away from his desk… you’ll just have to wait an unknown amount of time for the change to happen, meanwhile you’re in standing order limbo unaware of if the change you requested is actually going to happen or not.
- Beneficiaries: Want to use the HSBC online banking system to maintain a beneficiary list where two beneficiaries might have the same sort code and account number, forget it. You can’t do that. As much as I hate to say it – even Santander could manage this one. The problem here isn’t so much that the ‘legacy system’ behind the front end can’t handle multiple beneficiaries with the same account number and sort code, the problem is the user interface… rather that spouting a useless error code (HE7) at me why not just tell me what the problem is and advise as to how I can work around it.
This is an ongoing list which I’ll no doubt be adding to!
Update: I had a rather lovely letter back from HSBC advising me that they are currently working on a development to improve the beneficiaries system but that there was no planned further development of the currently ‘manual’ standing orders facility. If these issues bug you too why not send them an email to let them know...
I’ve got a Dribbble invite going spare. Leave a comment and a link to something awesome you’ve designed if you fancy an in. I’ll pick a lucky recipient at the end of the week. Oh and you can find me on Dribbble at http://dribbble.com/players/nathanpitman. :)
Over the past few months I’ve been working with the team at Voyage to develop and deliver their shiny new website. On the high of having the website complete they foolishly invited me to christen it with it’s inaugural headline and tell you a little bit about the journey we’ve taken from concept to reality.
Unlike a large number of agencies out there Voyage know what they do best. They have a team with supreme creativity and they leverage those skills to provide clients with creative solutions that deliver results across a wide variety of mediums. This is what makes working with Voyage as a partner so exciting. You know that the creative solution they propose is more than likely going to challenge the norm and push you to deliver something that breaks the mould.
Working to develop a web driven solution that the Voyage team have proposed is always an enjoyable task, the more enjoyable the task is, the more involved you become in it and for that you get a much better end result. In short, everyone wins.
Right from the start Voyage were very clear about the creative approach they wanted to take with their own website; incorporating a large horizontal canvas rather than the typical ‘vertical scroll’ that we’re all used to. It was also very clear that simplicity was going to be a key factor with ‘God‘ very much being ‘in the details‘ (Ludwig Mies van der Rohe).
We faced a number of technical challenges in marrying a horizontal layout with the dynamic ‘content managed’ nature of the website. Voyage wanted to be able to add, edit and remove pretty much any piece of content on the website through a web based administration system (Expression Engine) and it was this ‘dynamism’ which created problems for us.
Never knowing how many columns a headline might require, or how many work examples might appear on the home page at any given time certainly gave us some headaches but we knew that we couldn’t compromise on the creative approach and so we didn’t, instead we persisted and found solutions to the problems.
I’d like to think that the end result does a great deal to communicate what Voyage is about and that it will provide the company with the platform they hoped for to showcase their creative work. It has been a pleasure to work with the Voyage team on this project, they have high standards and know ‘exactly’ what they’re after. Good to know if you’re a prospective or current client of theirs. :)
