Earlier this year we let you know that Jeffrey Zeldman and his crew at A List Apart were compiling statistics in an online survey for the web design profession. This survey includes insights from many people in this area of expertise including designers, developers, project managers, writers and editors. The survey results have now been released to the public in a freshly designed PDF report.
33,000 web professionals chimed in to answer the 37 questions asked. The raw data was then churned out into this 82 page document , nicely designed of course, answering many questions like Who Are You?, Education, Salary, Jobs & Titles to how many designers have blogs and websites and what skills they have.
Are you a designer? developer? Like color? Want to do some cool things with Adobe's Kuler application? Now you can.
The Adobe Labs project Kuler, is a hosted color picker application that allows for inspiration, creativity and sharing, they now have an API for developers. This new Kuler API allows developers to request RSS feeds of the highest rated or most popular color themes, and incorporating them into web project and web sites.
Check out some Kuler API usage in the Showcase. Warning, most do require users to have Adobe AIR installed.
Have you ever wanted to create a nice little Web 2.0 mashup, but just didn't know where to turn to for an API that could grab the information you are looking to incorporate?
API's, application programming interface, are the source code that computer program libraries provide in order to support service requests. API's are often part of a standard software development kit, commonly referred to as an SDK. Companies that offer APIs range widely from Sony for their Playstation, Microsoft for Windows software, and more recently popularized in the online environment with Google Maps and many other online based mashups. As more and more organizations open up API's for developers to tool around with, that includes many that you visit online every single day, it gets harder and harder to keep track of what's available, and what is possible with them.
ProgrammableWeb has done a great job of supplying a comprehensive listing of all Web 2.0 API's. Anything from Google Adwords, del.icio.us, 30 boxes, Feedgator, BBC, Twitter and Zoho are listed here. All categorized and waiting for you to click and download.
A lot of companies, like Zoho, had to build their iPhone specific web applications without even testing on the iPhone. There was a lot of guessing games and sheer luck that had to go into building these applications and getting them ready for a semi final release before Apple's latest invention hit the streets.
Now that the iPhone is out, Apple wants to ensure that web applications and content flow smoothly on it. They have released a special developer's guide to help understand the iPhones capabilities, to ensure established web design practices are followed, and that iPhone specific design principles are met.
The iPhones applications run off of Safari and it uses the same Web Kit engine as Safari on computer desktops. Using the Safari Web Kit engine, developers can build Web 2.0 sites and applications that will entice iPhone users, this guide will help get you started.
The developers guide covers:
Understanding user iPhone interaction
Use Standard design practices
Integrate with phone, mail and maps
Optimize pages
Ensure a great audio and video experience
Find out what Safari supports
Connect with other web developers
If you have built an application for the iPhone drop it in the comments, we would love to check it out! Check out a list of current iPhone applications here.
Seems like someone has some kind of beef with web designers, or a passion to see more bad design online, but at least it seems like a cool service.
Zude is a new online service that lets people quickly and easily design their own websites. Through the Web 2.0 technology that Zude employs, people will be able to drag and drop content creating enhancements for the MySpace sites of the internet. This includes widgets, pictures, videos and images with the ability to resize, rotate and move the elements around the page.
Zude launches May 1st, and the scheduled fee for the service will be $25 a year for a blank customizable space. The premise for the service is great. It allows people that are not able to code and put together a website the ability to express themselves online, but are we headed to a geocities, MySpace, everything all over the place online world? Just as long as this service doesn't extend to the business sector, web designers should still be employable (we hope).
There are many advantages to designing with Cascading Style Sheets. CSS is extremely easy to learn and rework once a basic site framework has been established. Websites, or website components can easily be changed into something totally different just by swapping a single CSS file, or a line within a CSS file.
CSS designers always seem to have a few different elements that they commonly use over and over in all designs, these can include navigation elements and form fields, among other items. Smashing Magazine has compiled a list of 53 CSS Techniques that you couldn't live without, linking out to tutorials on CSS navigation, tabbed navigation, bar graphs, rounded corners, hover effects, image map, submit buttons, custom bullets, and sidenotes. Whether you are new to CSS, or have been in it for a while, these are some great tutorials to have archived as reference materials.
In a world full of social networks, can we possibly utilize another? Why yes! Especially if it is targeted to a unique niche, as Teapotters is. The recently launched under beta Teapotters is targeted at 3D artists and already has a loyal following. Users upload 3D files, and Teapotters converts the 3D to display it on the site for all users to view. The converted 3D files can then be published on to other social networks, or into websites or blogs.
Through Teapotters, artists have the ability to share their material as long as it's not used for commercial purposes. This is the first website I've come across that lets users share real time 3D elements. Teapotters is currently in private beta, users can register to (hopefully) get an invite. Check out the video tour here.
If you are a developer or designer looking for a list of great tools, check out the Protolize database. Tony has archived a listing of the most current and useful web tools. With categories ranging from CSS, Javascript, Ajax, PHP, Ruby, Flash, CMS, and Inspiration, you will surely get cooking with some top grade code. Each link is rated, and most contain a little description of what it works for as well as user reviews. Protolize is also quite pleasing to navigate with its sexy web 2.0 style. If you don't find what you're looking for on the site, or want to submit your site for inclusion in the directory, Protolize does have a submission form. Tip: Check out the Top Rated category for some real fresh stuff!
DeveloperID is an upcoming social network site designed exclusively for programmers, designers, engineers, system administrators, and any other member of the professional developer community. It's a pretty specific market niche. The network has not yet launched, but there is a slight little clue that it most likely was, and is being built with Ruby on Rails. Stay tuned in for this unique launch.
Opera 9 has a neat little feature that lets users, specifically webmasters, play with live website code, and then run it in the cache. This Opera browser option allows users to load a webpage, view and edit the source code, and click the "Reload from cache" button to check out the changes made to the site. The site then runs from the user's cache, playing back any changes made in the code. This is a nice little option if you like tinkering with code to try and find out techniques, tips and tricks of other developers.
Earlier this year we let you know that Jeffrey Zeldman and his crew at A List Apart were compiling statistics in an online survey for the web design profession. This survey includes insights from many people in this area of expertise including designers, developers, project managers, writers and editors. The survey results have now been released to the public in a freshly designed PDF report. 
