February 20, 2004
Designing for Context with CSS
by Joshua Porter
The medium is the message: Imagine providing unique information exclusively for people who read your site via a web-enabled cell phone — then crafting a different message for those who are reading a printout instead of the screen. Let your context guide your content. All it takes is some user-centric marketing savvy and a dash of CSS.
Helping Your Visitors: a State of Mind
by Nick Usborne
Even the simplest website is harder to figure out than a catalog or magazine. We all know how to “use” a catalog: start at the front cover and keep turning the pages. But with every new site we visit, we have to “learn” how it works, how its “pages” turn, how to find what we’re looking for. Text that takes visitors’ needs into account can help guide them through the maze.
New to the crew
ALA welcomes managing producer Dan Benjamin to our production staff.
Search
Readers ask when the magazine will again offer a Search function. Answer: Soon. We’re working with a technology partner to create an ALA Search that takes advantage of our publishing system’s deep use of meta data. Slow bakin’ makes good eatin’.
