Experimental Challenge

June 4th, 2010

Thinking about filling up the Experimental section of this site, I thought I’d open up the floor for willing designers to participate in generating a few new ideas. Here is what I’ve been recently thinking about:

1) How to document or represent floating / fixed positioned elements? Imagine you’re scrolling in the browser and an element stays in place.

2) How to document or represent text or element size ranges? With the introduction of min and max CSS attributes, some elements are allowed to grow to various sizes. In certain cases we might want to communicate that there is a maximum height or width allowed for text or elements.

I have a few ideas of my own on these which I will be sharing sometime soon, but I thought it would be great if more people submitted their ideas. If that happens, I could turn the next few posts into a compilation of sorts (and build up more of a community feel for this site).

If you’re interested, please submit sketches or visuals by email to wireframes AT linowski DOT ca. Rough is good. Sounds cool?

Jakub

ps. If you have other ideas for the experimental section, feel free to submit as well. :)

7 Responses to “Experimental Challenge”

  1. Stefan Wallin Says:

    Great idéa, stumbled over issue number one just this wednesday, but I have yet to come to a solution, will definitely stay tuned and make my cells churn on the matter the coming nights..

  2. Jakub Linowski Says:

    Hey Stefan. It would be awesome if you think of a solution that you'd be willing to share. Do let me know! :) Cheers

  3. Richard Says:

    In answer to point 1 I would have to say a small padlock or cork board pin icon located in a small square just outside a top corner of the element.

  4. Liou Yamane Says:

    @Richard, same idea, thought about a anchor as a icon, but I think the board pin is more clear. You coul also a drop shadow so the element "floats" above the rest of the content

  5. Dax Says:

    you wrote challenge wrong !! noob :)

  6. Stefan Wallin Says:

    I’ve thought about the icons aswell but since I’m the worst sketch artist ever I will have trouble drawing the icons described here, plus they’re common symbols to put on pages. Now that my mind have been churning on the issue for a couple of nights I think using a drop-shadow like Liou mentioned or use a jagged edge for your floating elements would be optimal. The shadow has the drawback of potentially beeing mistaken for a emphasized element or beeing produced mistakenly. Currently I’m on my way to my second job so I’ll draw you a mockup first thing tomorrow morning.

  7. Juha Says:

    Icons could work nice in a box diagram. Not so much in wireframes.