TAKA DESIGNS

As applications continue to migrate toward the web, mobile devices are an even more integral part of our everyday lives. According to The Mobile Internet Report released by Morgan Stanley in December 2009, the mobile internet will be twice the size of the desktop internet. More users will connect to the web through mobile devices than desktop computers within 5 years. With the emergence of the iPhone and Google’s Android platform now able to create quality user experiences on the web, these findings shouldn’t come as much of a surprise.

At UCLA, we recently launched a mobile version of the UCLA Happenings website, our campus events calendar at http://m.happenings.ucla.edu. If you haven’t thought about it already, then it’s only a matter of time before you’ll need to consider what you’re mobile strategy will be. Here are a few things to consider.

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We recently launched a new redesigned look for UCLA Happenings, which provides a single, highly visible location for UCLA event information.

The old site was very busy and overloaded with visual information and color themes that never really translated to users. Images were heavily used and events were hard to find, making it difficult for people to use the site. Usability studies and heat maps showed us that categories created for the site such as Hot, Fresh, and 90 days out for events did not transcend well for most people, and that supplemental links were heavily used.

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The Guitar Hero franchise has become a cultural phenomenon and huge success for parent company Activision, with total revenue topping $2.9 billion. What started off initially as a guitar game, with the original logo conveying an edgy rock feel, has since branched out into several other areas such as DJ Hero and Band Hero. With this came a need to rebrand the overall identity to help represent the array of different products within the franchise. The result has been a subtle update on the logo type that better suits the overall brand.

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Internet Explorer 6 (IE6) will be 8 years old in August. That’s ANCIENT in the technology world. Yet many web designers still find themselves supporting IE6. Should you? For the UCLA Gateway (http://www.ucla.edu) in July 2009, 62% of our visitors were using IE and of that 35% were using IE6.

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I’ve been asked quite frequently what the current “standard” is in width when designing layouts for web design. While there is really no set “standard”, 960 pixels is one of the most frequently used dimensions, and it’s the one I recommend. There’s even a website dedicated to the 960 pixel grid layout called the 960 Grid System. Some may even argue that it’s now gone beyond that.

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