School is back in session which means a lot of resetting up shop. Each time I arrive at a new workspace, I should have a “home” day, where I change the preferences on everything so it feels like home.

Here’s a quick list of what to trick out your browser with if you’re going to be into Web Design/Developing. (Firstly use Chrome. All the cool kids do.)

1. Web Dev toolbar
2. What Font
3. YSlow
4. Code Cola
5. Tools – Delicious.(you need to make an account)
6. Chrome Web Store – Pinterest Keyboard Shortcut | Ctrl+Alt+P.
7. Chrome Web Store – Chrome Time Track.
8. Chrome Web Store – Session Buddy.

Katsite. This is my school account for my web design endeavors. Here I will be putting the quarter’s projects. (As you can see, we’ll be having three projects.) With naming everything, it’s not about being creative. It’s about being consistent.

I was thinking “what’s missing?” as I was eating lunch. I realized I didn’t have a book to read. So, here’s a good list I’ll start from. It’s a great looking interaction design list. I think that’s a thing I want to focus on because I really love things when they work. It really gets me when I encounter a website or some product that does exactly a nice thing. On my vacation to Michigan, I went on a boat tour. The boat driver wore a a tee shirt with the map of the islands he was touring. Considering I was staring at his back half the time anyway, someone thought to make that time more useful by adding this useful map. Stuff like that, really thoughtful.

During Erik Fadiman’s first session of his Fall 2012 “Intractive Design IV” (I’m not sure if there’s a typo on his online syllabus or if the course is a very profound introspection) he covered the differences between agile development and waterfall methodology. He told the class about how content comes first and that’s why html is the boss.”No one comes to your website because it looks amazing.” He also gave an updated presentation of the things he talked about in Web Design Bootcamp. I don’t think anything was left out, so I will just link to those notes and that will be that. People Structure and Design Structure. Questions that you want to ask your client when going into the discovery meeting, or the set-up or whatever stage you’re at. “What is your content strategy?” and “What is your mobile strategy?”

It’s our goals as good designers to deal with the changes in information technology and center our designs around the user. It’s a great consideration to (as Fadiman says) “future-proof” our sites because there are so many different devices out on the market and we need to be delivering excellent experiences on all of them. Yay, Responsive Web Design.