What happended.  My first desk was in a room where I could see every sunset, well, as long as the sky allowed me to see the sun. This wasn’t something too special for me since at home I also have the change to see the sunset everyday. I really liked working there as I do like sunsets very much. After some time my department had to move from the third floor to the first floor. The view was very limited there – the parking lot and a building. We did have the same sunlight every day, but no more sunsets, no more special moments that let you pause for a while and reflect. A short but important moment.

Then, my switch to the other department let me move to another desk in the office. Back on third floor, but not back at the first desk. Instead I was at the opposite side of the building, with a view  to the sunrise. When I came to the office the first time last winter before the sunrise I was flashed. I sat down and didn’t even start my computer. For a couple of minutes I sat down and just watched the sun rise. And did nothing else. No talking , no thinking, just enjoing the moment. And it reminded me of something really important I had forgotten: Chaning perspectives.

There’s almost always two (or even more) views to look at a task, a problem, a topic. And there might not be one right or wrong way, good or bad. Every perspective has it’s unique features, circumstances, advantages, problems, etc. It’s important to always remember that and search for other perspectives. Only by looking at something from a different angle you might get all the different issues that are important.

Since then I remembered that situation over and over. Especially in my work, when I have to create solutions for designing web pages and creating concepts. Whenever I’m stuck I’ll try to find a new perspective.

Over the last years, people came to expect that the website logo is always a link back to a websites’ homepage. It’s a standard now that helps lots of users go “back to start”. The Google approach goes even further and is not only a link to the homepage but also to other important areas (in case of Google – web apps). That saves space and also makes the logo the first stop for the navigation.

However, as new as this seems, if we look at operating systems we see something similar. A button to access the systems apps and functions. And now there’s the Google operating system button. Looking into the future I’d expect that lots of other websites will use that feature.

On January 31st the latest version of jQuery 1.5 is expected to be released. With that a lot of new bug fixes, features and changes will be introduced. That is, many developers will then check their code and improve one or another thing. But unlike Flash or other frameworks, most developers will just stay using the jQuery version they have been used unless they really need to change something. With jQuery that’s possible since the jQuery version is selected by the developer and not the user. In case of other frameworks users will perform the update and thus some web pages will have to change in order to be displayed or work correctly. Thus the developer has more control.

However, I’ve also digged into web page performance for some sites and still think about one line of code. Over and over again I’m importing a jQuery javascript file at the end of the homepage – thus loading roughly 79 KB (gzipped is aroung 25KB). Since I’m using Google’s CDN a visitor who has previously been to another website using the same version has already downloaded it already and thus eliminating the delay. But not everybody does that.

So, why don’t we just pave the cowpaths as suggested by the HTML 5 design principles and create a “jQuery framework” that’s downloaded once and available always in the browser. Sure, you have versioning issues, but since the file is so small you could have 5-6 versions installed. The advantage of this could be that the jQuery code is saved in a complied version and thus load even faster. If the version you need is not yet available on the system it would be downloaded instead and availible for all other websites later.

Are there any other drawbacks to this?

When improving the load speed of a website there’s a lot you have to care about. A good overview is Yahoo!s “Best Practices for Speeding Up Your Website“. And there’s actually no one solution or a right solution, there are many ways and you have to look at what your websites purpose and the main paths are. For example, if you need a lot of Javascript but don’t need all code on the homepage, you can postpone loading the big chunks.

After some time thinking about different solutions for a project, I was reminded of the “Apollo 13” movie. During the flight to the moon the space module is damaged and they have to shut some part of the spacecraft down. The main problem before going back is that they may not have enough energy remaining. So they need to figure out the best order to turn parts of the system on and not going over a specific limit. Doesn’t that sound similar? It’s almost the same thing you do when trying to make you page load faster.

The first argument against wireframes is that they emasculate the designer. Yes, they do and I think no designer wants to get your wireframes and just paint by numbers. On the other hand designers need to have something to design. And that’s what from my experience should be in wireframes. The should inform the designer about the content that should be on the page, in the form etc. I have been working with some good designers, one of them Nina Wilke, who sometimes tell the IA that they missed this function or that information. But that should be the IAs job – to gather and structure the content – not to visualize or design it.

In addition, if you already have a good visual design and an running site, wireframes are sometimes just enough what a developer needs to get the page done. There’s no need to create designs for every aspect and thus be faster in the design process.