Cheryl Colan's Public Library

"for Jim Groom, an instructional technologist and adjunct professor at the University of Mary Washington, open online courses are not about scale and efficiency. They are about imagination and anarchy"

MOOC DS106 onlinelearning digital storytelling digital storytelling technology reflection story creativity stories writing power

venn diagram Neil Gaiman freelance work

Mental models have been studied by cognitive scientists as part of efforts to understand how humans know, perceive, make decisions, and construct behavior in a variety of environments. The relatively new field of Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) has adopted and adapted these concepts to further the study in its main area of concern (usability). This document will describe mental models and usability. It will then discuss the applications and limitations of mental models as they help improve software usability. The concluding section will describe a study developed and conducted by the authors. This study suggests some potential areas for further research that could help both cognitive scientists and HCI practitioners make progress in understanding mental models.

mental models usability web design

Paste text into this web app to calculate the readability.

web design readability calculator text writing

A sketchy style to use on any font. You can create a Graphic Style and easily apply the style to other editable fonts, and of course to any shape.

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a list of useful meta tags that you will need to make your website look like a native iOS web app on an iOS device

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If you only use one filter, use the grayscale filter which will not only point out potential problem areas, but will also let you see more clearly which areas the filter is unable to process.

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Simulates colorblind vision for images (by upload) or web pages (submit URL)

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Convert files to other formats without downloading software

file convert conversion webapp

Lets you download different formats of YouTube videos

YouTube video download save

Do you ever find a YouTube clip you want to share because of the audio, but the imagery is boring or annoying or unnecessary? Here’s how to embed that video as only an audio player. It’s very easy.

YouTube embed player audio how to video

Now that we can use CSS transitions in all the modern browsers, let’s make them pretty

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creating favicons - an edited excerpt from Chapter 3 of The Icon Handbook by Jon Hicks. Great stuff!

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monster posterous on infographics - lovely resource

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"although Illustrator has traditionally been used for drawing illustrations and logos, you can use it to design layouts and user interfaces, too.... you can utilize Illustrator to solve some regular design tasks better and more easily than you would do with other tools. With the techniques and tips I ... present ... you will be able to build modular, flexible websites in less time and with less work."

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The lowdown on positioning and reference points for pixel fonts in Illustrator: "Unlike usual typefaces, you have to know how to use a pixel font correctly. It’s simple: a pixel font is made up uf single pixels. That means that a stroke is only 1 px. There are no corner fillers or shades to make it nice and round."

Illustrator pixel fonts positioning tutorial reference

"must-have application for my multi-monitor configuration"

Windsows XP Vista desktop monitor dual software

for Windows

Windows desktop monitor dual

If you care about Internet search, this is a good blog: "Internet News is written by Gwen Harris as a current awareness service for people wishing to stay abreast with developments affecting web searching. It is a companion to the Websearchguide tutorials and the online courses Gwen teaches."

search blog News tools Internet