I’ve signed up for O2 broadband (again) this week, and I’ve been quite impressed with their service for setting things up. For every step you get an e-mail, then a text, which is great and keeps me up to date with how everything is going.

What’s better than that is the new router that they’ve sent me, other than that it arrived before the text saying it was on its way. The packaging on it is really quite clever ...]]> http://www.steveworkman.com/usability/2010/o2-broadbands-efficient-packaging/

Just a quick post: a colleague of mine sent me this from Facebook CNet.

CNet login validation

Have usability and accessibility gone too far?

This is an opinion piece about Microsoft’s Windows 7 Series phones. The opinions are my own and not that of my employer.

I remember the ‘good old days’. Back in 2004 (at uni) I tried to create a Windows CE program for a little mobile device. My friends and I spent months trying to get it to work (at one point resorting to Java, quickly realising our mistake), and in the end all we could produce was a list ...]]> http://www.steveworkman.com/user-interfaces/2010/microsoft-design-evolution/

This is the second part of a series on the construction of my blog. In this post, I’ll be focusing on the underlying HTML5 markup.

When I started making this blog, I had a decision about what language to use underneath. The choices were simple: HTML4, XHTML 1.0, or HTML5. The first two options represent the old school of HTML, both based on standards from 1999, with tags which have worked for years and are well understood and supported across ...]]> http://www.steveworkman.com/web-design/html-5-web-design/2010/html5-in-your-blog/

I’ve found my use case for an iPad: working without wi-fi. I’m sat on my sofa watching the superbowl and my Internet connection is down. I’m left trying to write blog posts on my iPhone, which, by the speed of my typing, is not going to be fun. At this point, I’d like an iPad. I’d like a laptop which isn’t quite a laptop, it just does what I need it to do. Thanks to lots of apps, ...]]> http://www.steveworkman.com/offtopic/ramblings/2010/i-could-really-do-with-an-ipad-right-now/

I’ve never really understood the netbook craze. I can see the benefits of having a lightweight, low-power computer that performs 90% of the tasks you use a personal computer for; it just hasn’t appealed to me, or my wallet.

I can understand that it’s a very cheap way to get online (even though they are double US$ the price in the UK), but I’ve been perfectly happy with a 13″ Macbook I bought 4 years ago. I haven’t seen ...]]> http://www.steveworkman.com/user-interfaces/2010/the-death-of-the-netbook/

Last weekend I was sat on the tube (London underground to international readers), picadilly line to be exact, heading into central London. A young man got on and sat down opposite me. He got out a little ASUS netbook, turned it on and swivelled the lid to use it as a touch screen. “Awesome”, I thought, “he’s got one of those cool touch screen netbooks running Windows 7, I’d love one of those, it’d be so convenient”.

I watched ...]]> http://www.steveworkman.com/user-interfaces/2010/tablet-usability-the-future-cant-come-soon-enough/

Did you know, HTML 5, the spec that will be completed in 2022, but with some bits available now, will have a whole new set of form elements designed to make complex forms available natively from the browser. I’ve been to a few talks where Opera’s Bruce Lawson has demoed and talked about these upcoming features that have been implemented in the Opera browser. From an accessibility standpoint it looks great; no longer will screen readers ...]]> http://www.steveworkman.com/web-design/html-5-web-design/2010/html-5-forms-a-spammers-paradise/

This is the first in a short series about my blog re-design. I’ll try and cover all the techniques used, including CSS3 and HTML5 usage

When considering the colour scheme for this blog, I looked at my old one quite a bit and decided that I quite liked it. Based on the resolution that blog design should be evolution rather than revolution, I set about finding a suitable palette that matches the silver, yet provides a bit more of ...]]> http://www.steveworkman.com/web-design/2010/adding-colour-to-colour-theory/

Of the upcoming CSS3 modules that are coming into common use: selectors, borders, text etc, the multi-column layout module interests me the most. I’ve always been a fan of newspaper style layouts and that was one of the key looks I was going for when re-designing this site. The big problem is that the module just isn’t ready yet.

The facts: