Hi, I’m Grace Smith

Weekly Web Roundup: Critical Analysis Edition #4

Weekly Web Roundup

This week saw the announcements at the WWDC of the new iPhone 3G S, Safari 4 and the unveiling of Snow Leopard which had most people glued to twitter for updates. Along with all the Apple news, a new app was officially released from Google – Quick Search Box for the Mac. I’ve downloaded this and have to admit it’s shaping up to be a rival to Quicksilver.

Along with the big news there were plenty of other great articles and resources being published over the last week, my favourite of which are summarised below.

I’ve named this the Critical Analysis Edition as my two favourite articles this week focused on the critique and analysis of well known sites.

Analyzing the Design of Websites: Apple, Microsoft & 37 Signals
An interesting experiment taking the home pages of popular websites, to see if it was possible to automatically calculate whether a design is good or not.
Dear Dustin Curtis – The Response
Following on from Dustin’s critique of the American Airlines website, one of the developers responds blaming the corporate culture at AA, very interesting.
Why Designers Should Learn How to Code
I agree to a point, however designers and developers tasks differ greatly, i personally feel you should concentrate on what you rock at!
WordPress 2.8 Baker Released
The hotly anticipated release of 2.8 saw much needed tweaks to the themes, widgets, taxonomies, and overall speed.
15 Effective Tips and Tricks from the Masters of CSS
A great post with tips from the web’s best designers and developers, including Eric Meyer and Dan Cederholm, this is a must bookmark.
Effective Strategy To Estimate Time For Your Design Projects
Four well explained techniques which can be applied to dramatically increase the accuracy of most of your web project estimates.
Hype For Type
This new type foundry launched with a bang this week, showcasing the best in typographic talent, as well providing a platform to buy unique, hand-crafted fonts.
Design Police (Kits)
These downloadable kits will help bring bad design to justice! A really fun site where you can download PDF’s and use them as stencils or stickers.
Preserve
This is a unique (and growing) collection of signage from old buildings. Any user can contribute their photos. A must bookmark for any typography lover!

That’s a wrap up of the fourth edition. Were there any links you thought deserved a mention? If so drop a link in the comments so we can check them out.

Photo by manel

Grace Smith is owner of the small but perfectly formed web design studio Postscript5, in Northern Ireland. To keep up to date with the latest designalicious content, then please consider subscribing.