The judges would then review your work and score it based on code (cleanliness, semantics, and validation); user experience (respect for design, good choice points, interactions); and support (modern browsers, legacy browsers, size of project, resource optimization).  In the judges hands rests the responsibility of deciding one grand prize winner, 2 second place winners, 2 third place winners, and 20 runners-up.

A few Centresourcers were up to the challenge, here is what they had to say about the experience:

Mike Calhoun

The big thing that jumped out at me with this design was how EVERYTHING had a textured background associated with it. After that initial shock, my attention turned to points that seemed like they could have some kind of user interaction. There were none specified by the designer and the rules had specified that it was left to the coder to decide what (if any) they would like.  The obstacles section was an obvious choice for some kind of hover/transition.  The count down clock and form area also seemed like something that would have an room to explore with whatever I came up with while creating the markup. After a closer look, a few other smaller nuances caught my eye such as the small transparent border at the end and beginning of each section, the text shadows and many of the headings, or (again) the textured background.  In the end, I made a conscious decision to try and keep this as small as possible in terms of the file size and sacrifice complete compatibility for items like the above nuances in legacy browsers.  Although this probably hurt me in terms of scoring, I thought it would be more beneficial to learn newer practices for HTML5 and CSS3 versus supporting Internet Explorer 6 (which honestly has not been something I’ve thought about for a few years).  The trade off worked out well for modern browsers as everything looked pretty close to the design and I was able to use lots of CSS3 properties to accomplish the gradient background effects (rgba transparent backgrounds with a gradient image), font face properties for all the non standard fonts (allowed for the ticking clock), and extensive use of the jQuery animate property for my transition effect on the prizes section. In all, this was a  great experience that should pay off in the long run for applying new process to future work.

Travis Roberts

Mike went over the different sections/elements of the design, so I'll talk about some of the tricks I used to accomplish the design while still keeping file sizes nice and small.

First, I exported all of my images as transparent GIFs instead of PNGs. The judging gives points for compatibility with older browsers, and everyone's favorite browser to hate, Internet Explorer 6, doesn't support transparent PNGs. The image quality of the exported assets were comparable as GIFs, the file sizes were much smaller, and they work with IE6 without having to do any weird hacks. By using GIFs, the total size for all image assets clocked in around 868KB.

Second, I used a CSS3 library (Animate by Daniel Eden) to accomplish all of the effects/transitions. This may seem counterintuitive to my previous paragraph about older browser compatibility. My thought was that effects/transitions are progressive enhancements. The site will still work fine without them, but they add a little polish to browsers that understand them. Because I used the CSS3 library for my effects, the only external javascript file I included was jQuery. This allowed my total project size to be relatively small (~1.1MB zipped).

My entry: http://cssoff.csclientsite.com/troberts/

1. The user knew the purpose of the site
2. He or she found the information they were looking for
3. They loved it so much that they alerted the masses through their social networks of this so called 'said' site. (Hey @Jimmy!  Check out this awesome site that sold me insurance and looked hip to the jive!)

What might you ask makes these 3 successes magically come together?  That magic would be something called the 'User Interface Design'.  Good user interface design can make a product easy to understand and use, which in return yields a greater user acceptance.  A designer should make the user's experience as simple and efficient as possible to accomplish the company's goals.  A question that stumps me at times is, how can I make this site efficient for a user yet still make it look intricately designed?

Here are a few things to think about when designing a good UI site:

1. Design with a purpose:

Most users don't read the fine print, they scan the page until they find what they're looking for.  When designing with a purpose (ie selling insurance, raising money for a non profit, promoting a new record), make that area loud and clear.  Imagine that very important section as a "hey! look at me!" flag on the page. Your job as a designer is to get rid of the question marks and direct the user straight to the point.

2. Use your words:

Much like I'm doing in this post (wink!), make use of different writing styles by using bold, italics, and short segments of text.  Also, talk business.  For example, if you want a user to use your product, apply phrases like "sign up" rather than "start now".  By using appropriate action words, this will encourage an actual action on the user's part.

3. White space is your friend:

The human brain automatically compartmentalizes words and images into separate pieces of information.  The use of white space can dramatically help the user's eye to perceive important information without being crowded and distracted by the lack of space.

4. Usability Testing

After you have completed your designs, usability testing is one of the best ways to quickly test if other people than yourself understand the site.  This will bring to light the most obvious errors that you did not see yourself.

Shoply is an example of a site that has a great user interface.  If you look at the below image, you'll notice that the design applied each of the 4 techniques I mentioned above.

• The designer designed with a purpose.  Immediately I knew this was a site I could purchase unique items from local businesses.
• They 'used their words'. I knew exactly what new items were featured, where to search the marketplace, and where to click if I wanted to open my own shop.
• The white space made this site easy to navigate and is super easy on the eyes.

In the end, there truly are a lot of factors that go into making an amazing website.  I hope a few of these tricks can help any fellow designers think about the importance of good user interface design.

See full size image here.

Thanks to BuySellAds for the great info.

In your development environment file at /config/environments/development.rb, place the following command in the <Your App>::Application.configure block

ENV["RAILS_ASSET_ID"] = ''

Voilá! Timestamps gone in development.

As a manager, you set the weather.

Our CEO, Nick told me early on "you set the weather for your department".  At the time I had never heard the expression before.  Here's how I understand it...  do you remember when you were a kid?  You came home from school, finished your social studies homework and curled up on your family's corduroy couch.  You armed yourself with a bag of pretzels in one hand, Capri-Sun in the other and an episode of Thundercats on the TV.  Life was sublime... that was until your dad walked in after a bad day at work.  You didn't know exactly what it was, but in an instant you could feel the entire climate of the house change.  You were suddenly nervous that the TV was too loud, you franticly cleaned spilled pretzel crumbs and feverishly went through a mental list of overdue chores you had yet to complete.  You were just waiting for the parental hurricane to blow your way.  The same is true in management.

As a manager, if I don't mentally buy into a new policy, system or project my staff will sub-concioulsy pick up on those feelings and manifest them throughout the department.  As a person in leadership your first priority should be your attitude - if you love your job and your company, and project those feelings with intentionality, chances are the morale of your team will improve exponentially.

A company's value is the sum of it's people.

As cliche as it sounds, I didn't really understand the depth of this principle before this particular position.  Centresource at any given time has a mosaic of founding employees, brand new hires, single 20-somethings, married 40-somethings, night-owls, early-birds, authors, coders, designers, musicians & competitive eating champions.  This dynamic and ever changing make-up, removed from talent or aptitude, actively sets up the entire culture of the organization.  People don't often give due credit to the weight of a company's culture on it's overall performance.  As a manager, it is your daily (and typically unscheduled) duty to navigate these sensitive waters.  If someone feels for instance devalued in a particular exchange with a co-worker, it is your job to investigate what brought them to this point and how to initiate at times company-wide changes to make sure the situation never happens again.  Learning how to be a culture-protector is definitely not part of the job description, but turned out being one of the most rewarding parts of the job.

Problem-solvers are a manager's most valuable asset.

Probably my biggest personal take-away from my time here at Centresource is the deep appreciation for problem-solvers.  I would rather have 5 problem-solvers working for me than 1 wildly talented, rock star, rich, good-looking, successful problem-finder.  You know the old chinese proverb about teaching a man to fish (if not, look it up)?  Do you know why he really did it?  So the guy would leave him alone and go away.  Your staff doesn't realize it but constant low hanging questions are kryptonite to a manager's spirit.  Sure there are some we have to field, but in my experience most questions asked of me on a daily basis are well within reach of the person asking.  Problem-solvers within a company are worth their weight in gold.  The person that comes up to me and says, "I found this problem, I researched it, I asked some folks about it and I came up with these 3 possible solutions.  What do you think?" would get a kiss directly on the mouth (we are still working though the HR ramifications invoked by that stunt).  There are some amazing problem-solvers within the ranks at Centresource... and to them I am forever grateful.

In conclusion, it has been an absolute pleasure working here.  I will take away nothing but good memories and always think of my time here as an invaluable step in my professional journey.  Many thanks to the entire staff - keep up the world-class work!

Editor's Note: Jason is leaving the Centresource family to become a partner at Tyemill, a company that specializes in ecommerce solutions for active brands. We wish him all the best in his future endeavors, and trust he won't become a stranger (he's already threatened to crash our annual retreat)!

Here is my analysis of the results & how they represent larger trends in the industry:

* 30% of iPad owners have purchased 1 or more additional iPads

Most likely, this represents the 'me too' factor that may occur in multi-person households. Once a person gets an iPad, other household members want a device for themselves. It could also represent a desire for more ubiquitous access throughout the house. I believe this trend will continue

* 60% of iPad owners see their usage continuing to increase

As of early 2011, only 5% of the US population owned a tablet & many forget the iPad is only 1.5 years old. The entire ecosystem will continue to mature as participants find new & innovative ways to use the device. I believe this trend will continue for another 2-3 years before leveling off.

* 40% of iPad owners now use it as their primary computing device

The majority of consumers spend their 'off time' focused on Web browsing, email, social media, and games - statistics that hold up even on personal computing devices. Given how well the iPad handles these categories, it isn't surprising that many are using it as their primary computing device. I believe this trend will continue as tablets increase their capabilities & the population becomes more comfortable with touch-typing.

* Information consumption (web browsing, social media, email, watching video) accounts for approximately 69% of usage

The vast majority of Americans can read & earn enough income to have 'free time' for social interactions and entertainment consumption. Reading, Listening, and Video Watching are natural behaviors that occurred before the tablet and will continue on a variety of mediums. The capabilities and portability of the iPad simply help Americans do more of what they already did. I expect this usage trend to remain stable or possibly decrease as users become accustomed to using the iPad for more complex tasks.

* 88% of owners have downloaded 10 or more apps. 29.2% have downloaded over 50!

The Apple AppStore is a phenomenon unto itself - something that isn't tablet or device specific. What is incredible is that the iPhone and iPad are training millions of people on how to explore & acquire software. This paradigm shift will have profound impact on the general computing markets as is already represented by the Mac AppStore and Chrome Web Store. Amazon has entered the frey and Microsoft is rumored to be creating an App Store for their next Windows release. I expect this trend to continue & effectively kill every other software sales channel.

* 94% of people have paid for at least 1 app

This is an extension of the previous point & represents an incredible long term opportunity for software developers. Nearly every iPad owner has entered their credit card information into iTunes and purchased an app - an initiation that will have long term effects on future purchases. ECommerce experts recognize that the initial point of purchase is the hardest hurdle to overcome & the iPad (iPhone too) is training millions of owners to become repeat customers. I expect this trend to continue, yet the battle for mindshare is just beginning. It is possible that most users will have 5-6 primary sources for software and I believe most smaller players will be negatively impacted. I also believe that in a few years, users will grow annoyed with single ecosystem lock-in and Amazon may find themselves in a good position.

* For news heavy sites, consumption is almost perfectly even between Web, Aggregator, and App Specific Consumption.

This statistic touches on news, but I believe it represents a much larger trend affecting most businesses. Users increasingly expect information to be available on the web, accessible by their favorite aggregators, and through deeper experience apps. While the latter may not apply to all organizations, the first 2 almost certainly do. The irony is that many organizations barely have their website strategy together & tablet/mobile form factors are rarely considered. This presents a unique window of opportunity for some to cater to the growing mobile/tablet market as a way to differentiate from their competition.

* 10% of the iPad owners also have a Macbook Air, yet only 10% of those say it reduced their iPad Usage. In fact, 73.8% of people believe that a Macbook Air purchase decision has no relation to iPad.

Some device manufacturers believe that the primary allure of tablets is their form factor and battery life. This 'device specification' centric view is leading many manufacturers to make ultra portable laptops as a way to compete with the disruptive tablet growth. Ironically, I think the survey results show that the tablet represents a lot more than a form factor - it is a complete shift in human to device interaction. Thus, even the beautiful Macbook Air doesn't replace the iPad. On the flip side, I believe that tablets and laptops will continue to exist side by side and that many users will determine that both are equally valuable in the right context. This trend will continue as the prices drop for both tablets, smartphones, and laptops... users will learn to use all three in their ideal contexts.

* 87.4% of people never even considered an Android device before buying the iPad. Further, 79.5% continue to say that they wouldn't even consider Android for their next purchase, still wanting an iPad.

Being first doesn't mean you win, but it does mean that its your game to lose. Apple has done a fantastic job of not only creating remarkable devices, but also creating an ecosystem that holds it all together. Moreover, Apple doesn't have to be the largest to continue to win. Android has already surpassed Apple in the smartphone market, but that hasn't negatively impacted their profit margins or growth. If you examine Apple's computer line, you'll recognize that while small - it is still very profitable when compared to larger manufacturers like Acer. I expect Android tablets to take off in 2012, but Apple's first mover status will ensure a long, profitable life for the iPad & its owners.

Share your thoughts (even if you disagree) - these are fascinating times we're living in!

NLH

A logo design is the most important and cost effect effective element of branding.

What happens when you want to re-create your logo? Rebranding can be difficult to do, especially if there is an emotional attachment to the logo.  For example, the Gap and NBC attempted to rebrand their logo this past year and it cause a huge uproar.

Here are a few tips to keep in mind when redesigning your logo:

1. A majority of customers and people have a difficult time with change, especially if they have an emotional attachment.  If the logo only needs to be brought up to date a bit, consider not changing the entire image and try simply updating the font choice.

2. Make sure you can still recognize the brand.

3.  Determine who your core audience member is. The target market, customers, shareholders, employees, partners, vendors, community. Each one of these groups have are involved in some degree in the organization. Who’s opinion matters most?  Being clear about this makes the process of rebranding so much easier.

4. Your business' brand is more than a logo. This includes your web presence, office space, print materials, apparel, signage, advertisements and communications.

5. Put together a team of project managers (cough, centresource) around you to help keep account of all aspects of your brand when forming a new logo.

6. Rebranding should result in not only a different "look" but also a different "experience" for your ideal customers.

"If paying is a deal-breaker, then Travis Roberts, developer for centresource, recommends Redmine, which has “great version control integration,' "

We love collaborating with .Net Magazine and look forward to more in the future!

Check out the entire article here.

Here at centresource, we're not the only ones who love to use these fonts.  According to the Google Web Font Blog, they now serve roughly 50 million daily requests.  Growth picked up considerably after Google Web Fonts announced over 20 new font families for the New Year.

One of the best attributes to these fonts are that you can either download the font or simply copy and paste the stylesheet link and CSS into your pages.  That's it, you're done!

The site currently has 174 fonts available for use and I'm looking forward to seeing other fonts added in the next few months.  Cheers to Google for continually making the internet more beautiful and fun.

The project began in Nov of 2010 and is almost complete.  Here are few examples of my favorite designs thus far...the Texas design *almost* makes me want to go to Texas.  I'm still holding out for Tennessee and will purchase one immediately!

To keep up with this project, follow 'Fifty and Fifty' on Twitter here!