When Adobe announced their decision to stop Flash development for mobile devices, we certainly weren’t surprised. It’s been a year since we’ve had any requests for Flash of any kind. But if you’ve been hearing that this is the end of Flash altogether, don’t think that means it’s time to toss it if you’ve got it.

If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it

When styling practices started moving away from tables-based layouts (way back when) there was a rush to convert anything and everything to tableless layouts with CSS. While many sites really did need to overcome some huge inefficiencies, others that were working perfectly fine in tables underwent redesigns just to be able to say they were now up-to-date. In reality, they could have waited until the need to change arose.

While mobile is growing and eventually we’ll all want to have our sites accessible from any device, that doesn’t mean we all need it immediately.

Analytics

Check your analytics. If you don’t have a very large mobile audience yet, and you’re already using Flash effectively—then keep it! There’s no reason to get rid of a perfectly wonderful experience built in Flash if your audience is accessing it just fine.

HTML5 for Mobile

If after checking your analytics you find that you do have a growing mobile audience, then HTML5 is the way to go. Along with Adobe’s Flash statement, they also said they would be contributing to HTML5 for mobile. It’s universally compatible with mobile devices (iPhone, Android and beyond). The downside is that it isn’t completely functional in all desktop browsers yet.

Beyond the web site

Let’s not forget, Flash isn’t just for web sites. It’s been used to create some amazing applications for use at tradeshows and conferences. And the great news is that these applications aren’t affected by the mobile barrier, so Flash is still a great option for creating them.

At Sandstorm, we love the beautiful interactive work that has come from Flash. The Johnny Cash Project is one of our favorites. Within our portfolio, we’re so proud of the AskBlue Medicare application for Blue Cross Blue Shield Association. And while we’ll always have a soft spot for Flash, we’re also extremely excited about the opportunities HTML5 creates. Regardless of the technology, we’re just happy to be building powerful interactive experiences.

Sandstorm takes home silver in the prestigious 13th annual Web Health Awards℠. (WOO HOO!) This competition recognizes the nation’s best digital health resources and top interactive agencies. A panel of 32 experts in digital health media served as judges and selected gold, silver, bronze, and merit winners.

Our work creating Ask Blue Medicare received a coveted Silver Award for the Web Based Resource Category. This interactive web application helps users understand Medicare health care coverage options from Blue Cross Blue Shield Association.  With closed captioning as well as the ability to increase the type size, this application was designed to educate people around 65 years old on the benefits available through Medicare.

We launched this highly interactive and accessible application in August 2010.  To offer this helpful tool to an even broader audience, the application was also launched in Spanish in April 2011.

We’re really excited about this accomplishment and look forward to developing more award-winning web applications, Drupal websites, and interactive user experiences in 2012.

REALTOR^® University and the National Association of REALTORS^® partnered with Sandstorm’s Drupal development team to build their first ever master’s degree program. The web site was developed through a combination of marketing messaging, copywriting, tagline development, user interface design and implementation of the Drupal 7 CMS. Featured on the homepage are rotating graphics emphasizing the core advantages the university offers. We are so excited to announce this launch!

During Part 1 of this two-part interview series, Patrick McNeil talked with Sandstorm Design about design trends, industry standards and the future. This time around McNeil shares his thoughts on typography, social media integration and responsive web design. McNeil is a web developer with an eye for design, and the author of the Web Designer’s Idea Book series. His next book, The Designer’s Web Handbook, will be coming in the summer of 2012. Be sure to also look for his recently released Web Designer’s Idea App, which compiles his first two books into an iPad app.

SD: What are your thoughts on the advancement of typography on the web?

PM: I definitely think it’s exciting because it brings a lot of basic options and beauty to the web. Typography can really enhance or kill a design and so its nice that we have a growing range of options to implement cool type and even better control over how it looks in general…The more control designers have, the better off the end result is.

SD: On the same topic of control, what do you think of the social media APIs and widgets that designers might not have as much design control over?

PM: Yeah, like the standard Facebook box that just looks like total poo…You can add a Facebook “Like” button in any way you want. It can look any way you want. But if you want to put that flow of what people are saying, then you’re a little stuck because it’s just ugly. I think sometimes it’s about tradeoffs. And sometimes it’s about how far you go to program something to make it just look awesome.

SD: What is an issue the web design industry has yet to solve, that you would like to see web designers tackle?

PM: The biggest shift, even as a result of the whole responsive design movement, is just fully accepting that the web is not print. For how many years have we worked our butts off to make a web site render the exact same across all browsers? And responsive design blows this up because all of the sudden you’ve got tablets, you’re thinking about netbooks different, and you’ve got smartphones, and you’re even thinking about people seeing it on their TV. All of the sudden, by the basic definition of it, you’re required to not think that it’s going to look the same everywhere.

In that sense, it’s not print. You print a brochure or a business card—you can print 10,000 copies—it doesn’t matter what you do, where you go, its going to look the same. I think that’s probably the biggest thing I see people moving past in this time in the web, really forcing that issue.

So I’ll be glad if everybody else gets on board and just accepts that things look different in different interfaces or devices. We just have to embrace each of them for the opportunity that they create.

SD: Would you say that’s the web design industry’s biggest success recently?

PM: I think that combined with some of the advancements in typography. They have really been potent. Because when you think about displaying the same site in multiple ways and then you combine that with better techniques for controlling typography and less need for images, or even for sIFR where you’re replacing it with Flash. The more that happens in the browser it just means that you can cater those things to individual devices better…I think we’re seeing pretty powerful results.

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We really enjoyed talking with Patrick McNeil, and are looking forward to the release of the Designer’s Web Handbook. At Sandstorm Design, we work as a team to create powerful brand experiences supported by user research and a strategic marketing approach. We’ll help you stay ahead of the curve with custom web solutions that are one step ahead of your competition.

We recently logged onto Skype from our Chicago office for a conversation with web developer and web design lover, Patrick McNeil. He is the author of the Web Designer’s Idea Book series, and his latest book, The Designer’s Web Handbook, will be coming in the summer of 2012. He has also recently released the Web Designer’s Idea App, which compiles his first two books into an iPad app. We talked design trends, industry standards and more. The following is the first part of our two-part edited conversation, so be sure to check back for the second half of the interview!

SD: You’ve been following design trends for a long time. Which ones do you believe have the strongest staying power?

PM: [The trends with the strongest staying power] are definitely ones that aren’t trends any more, they’re just normal ways of doing anything. I guess at some point in the history of the web putting the logo in the top left was a trend, and then it just sort of became the norm. One that you noticed popped out a couple years ago—I always called it the pitch—on a homepage you have this nice, clear, bold text that basically sums up what a site does. At some point people started doing that and now it’s just what you do so that people know what the heck they’re looking at… This new trend became a norm and now it’s a fundamental part of every site.

SD: Are there any trends that you don’t like, that bother you?

PM: [Laughs] Yeah, every trend kind of goes through that for me. For example in the whole web 2.0 craze everybody was putting badges on their sites—those little starry badges—and it was kind of like, God that’s annoying. At the time it’s just part of what you’re doing but as you look back you’re just like, I’m so glad that’s over.

The irony is now you can still use them; people just use them when it actually makes sense. Most annoying trends eventually fade away and then just resolve to what they should have been in the first place—which is very functional.

SD: Which sites have web designers been able to look to consistently for industry standards?

PM: I actually think there is an overwhelming amount of design work that’s not necessarily mainstream or the big name stuff, it’s just normal designers doing their job everyday. And in a lot of ways that’s what fills my books. I don’t focus on the facebooks or the amazon.com type of stuff because we all see that. I much prefer to focus on small studios or lesser-known resources…That’s been most definitely the source for me over and over—the unknowns.

SD: If you could give web designers one ultimate challenge for the future, what would it be?

PM: Learn to code a little bit. [Laughs] A lot of people disagree with that. I don’t expect designers to be full-on developers and coders but I think that the people who are getting the most fanfare as awesome designers can also code. They just understand both sides of the coin and how to work with the medium the best, essentially.

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We love Patrick’s books, and can’t wait for the Designer’s Web Handbook to be released. At Chicago-based Sandstorm Design, our entire team works closely to create powerful brand experiences supported by user research and a strategic marketing approach. Let us help you stay ahead of the curve with custom web solutions that are one step ahead of your competition.

Sandstorm Design recently launched AskBlue Medicare, a health care web application for Blue Cross Blue Shield Association.  The interactive experience educates users on Medicare health care coverage options. To offer this helpful tool to an even broader audience, the application has now launched in Spanish! Ver aquí la nueva aplicación! (See the new application here!)

Sandstorm Design is thrilled to kick off the new year by launching a new web site and brand for Gregg Communications! What started with a web site has grown into a full on partnership to reinvent Gregg’s brand. And it has been so wonderful to have a client as enthusiastic about the process as we are! With a new web site and identity, the Gregg brand is now aligned with the quality service and expertise of their staff. We are so proud to announce this launch and look forward to more growth with Gregg!

They say you learn something new everyday. And today we learned quite a bit from our Technology and Usability Director, Michael Hartman, who shared some key takeaways from a ‘Putting Research into Practice’ training seminar by Human Factors International, Inc.

One of the most intriguing findings was from a study by Tractinskya, Cokhavia, Kirschenbauma, and Sharfib (2006) where participants made a split second decision (500 milliseconds) about the attractiveness of a web site. Turns out the average attractiveness ratings stayed about the same when the exposure time was extended to 10 seconds. This means users’ impressions about a web site’s aesthetics are made in less than a second. They don’t really change their mind after more time on the site. We all know how important first impressions are. Which is why aesthetics are extremely critical if you want a user to stay on your web site for, well, more than a second. If you ever need a little help with your web site design, you know who to call.