The Log

How to Approach a Design Responsively ⇾

Tito Bottitta gives one of the best overviews I’ve read on building a design responsively. He gives great insight into their team’s entire approach, from step one right to the end. Along with Trent Walton’s candid look at his own process, this piece resonated, identifying a few of the pain points I’ve come across on my own (on a much smaller scale).

When We Read ⇾

The folks behind Read It Later put together an interesting read showing trends in usage of their application. The aspect that gets the most attention is the reading times by device. My own usage of my devices (Macbook, iPhone, iPad) would mirror their findings.

[ via MinimalMac ]

Alex Payne — Shortchanging Your Business with User-Hostile Platforms ⇾

This post from Alex Payne is a good read, and apparently one that caused a lot of discussion. He touches on a few subjects that are ripe for flame wars (Adobe AIR, Adobe period, and Campfire and the search for replacement options), but being Alex, does so in an articulate and thoughtful manner.

Whether you agree with his opinion, it’s a good read.

Sidenote: I’ve heard plenty of folks discuss the idea of moving from Campfire. Perhaps for good reason. It seems to be the neglected app of the suite from 37 signals and — at least from the view of an outside — receives the least amount of development time out all their offerings.

Part of me assumes they’ll get around to improving the Campfire service soon. But a bigger part of me acknowledges that it’s probably the app that is least important to them. It’s an app that first of all met their needs, and then the needs of other distributed digitally-focused teams over the globe. But the rest of their apps, while useful for those same tech/web focused teams, are also very useful for regular folks. For what Spencer Fry refers to as normals.

If there’s one thing I’m learning in this field, it’s that this is where the money is. It’s not on the bleeding edge where things change daily. It’s when you get the real people, those who use a tool because it allows them to do their job, to embrace your product/service.

Perhaps Campfire will continue on it’s current form, all the while the 37signals crew makes big money off of the normals.