Search by tag: design

Mobile first and responsive design

The core design mission of the new St Andrews website is to cater for mobile devices, as these are rapidly becoming the dominant medium for web. While most organisations still commission a website to look good on their…

Why is the user important?

As we may have mentioned a few times already, the digital communications team is committed to a user centred approach to our work: whether that be research, design, content or build. We have placed users at the heart…

“Yes, but which fold?”

I am the fold Here is another illustration of why talking about the fold is unhelpful, and of the challenges we face in designing a webpage that will look good at a variety of different screen sizes.

Consistency, not uniformity

Being consistent, not uniform This is a good explanation of the concept behind a common look and feel such as what we are currently developing. It is not about reducing the amount of flexibility or giving every page…

Designing in the browser

As we begin to transition towards a mobile-friendly design and workflow, I’m thankful that for the last five or six years we’ve been designing primarily in the browser, rather than in graphic editing applications such…

The evolution of the Study at St Andrews design

We had intended on writing an article about the design process for the Study at St Andrews website. Sadly, there is this thing called proper work, and we haven’t had the time to do it. Today I began cleaning up the…

Writing great microcopy

From Google Ventures: 5 rules for writing great interface copy We have been talking recently about content design, the idea that content is not merely written; it needs to be crafted. (The Government Digital Service…

Replacing the Flash world map

One of the biggest issues we have had to tackle while working on the new Study at St Andrews website is the entrance requirements and country information section. The website contained a Flash world map that was…

Designing university websites

University websites: top 10 design guidelines This study from Nielsen Norman Group assesses higher education websites in four countries including the UK. This is very relevant to us, and I would encourage anyone…

Whitespace, copywriting and Google Now

Why whitespace matters There is a tendency among non-experts to cram as much information as possible onto a webpage. But you should not think of whitespace as wasted space. Designers know that whitespace is hugely…