Blog

Knowledge is power

By Jamie Freeman, 19th January 2012 11:48am

Knowledge is power, as the well-worn expression goes. When people try to restrict access to knowledge what they're really trying to do is restrict access to power - and retain it for themselves.

If I were to 'know' everything, there would be nothing you could hide from me. I could form my own opinions. I could decide this way or that.

That, of course, is the polar opposite of what a politician would wish for! A politician exists to further their own ends. They would, of course, argue that they exist to further 'the people's ends, but generally only their kind of people.

Continue reading…

The drop-bar menu

By Jamie Freeman, 4th January 2012 02:31pm

A long time ago I wrote about my dissatisfaction with drop-down menus. Well, ok, more than dissatisfaction - I hated on them pretty bad! On a recent project, the redesign of Oi Polloi's website, the client had previously used drop-down navigation and initially wanted us to do likewise… uh oh!

Rather than enter into an endless debate on the subject I decided we needed to come up with something better, that would satisfy the client's desire to expose as much of the site structure to shoppers as possible, while remaining far more usable than drop-downs typically allow. We came up with something pretty cool I think, but we don't yet have a cool name for it. The 'drop-bar menu' is about as close as we got!

Continue reading…

  1. Capital Punishment

    Some thoughts on the brands that mess with the conventions of grammar. Jamie hates that…

    By Jamie Freeman, 21st December 2011 01:14pm

  2. Thank you Steve Jobs

    Apple co-founder dies. Sad all over.

    By Jamie Freeman, 6th October 2011 09:03am

  3. Cycling rools

    Finally, a British cyclist back in the rainbow jersey!

    By Jamie Freeman, 26th September 2011 09:44am

  4. Visualising development on Oi Polloi

    By James Moss, 10th August 2011 04:42pm

  5. Lego Millennium Falcon

    By Jamie Freeman, 5th August 2011 04:17pm

  6. Setting e-commerce goals for Oi Polloi

    By Jamie Freeman, 25th July 2011 09:51am

  7. Tribute to Clearleft

    By Jamie Freeman, 14th July 2011 04:37pm

  8. Playing shop at Message!

    By Jamie Freeman, 24th May 2011 03:11pm

  9. New faces at Message

    By Jamie Freeman, 11th May 2011 09:28am

  10. Message to create new Oi Polloi website

    By Jamie Freeman, 13th April 2011 01:40pm

  11. Message creating social strategy for TA Design

    By Jamie Freeman, 4th February 2011 12:45pm

  12. An open letter to Babici.cc

    By Jamie Freeman, 31st January 2011 03:25pm

  13. Message and SEO

    By Jamie Freeman, 23rd December 2010 05:26pm

  14. Remembrance

    By Jamie Freeman, 10th November 2010 01:38pm

  15. Ride 'Em, Cowboy!

    By Jamie Freeman, 7th October 2010 02:36pm

  16. New fashion brand website

    By Jamie Freeman, 27th September 2010 10:33am

  17. Cookiefail

    By Joe Holdcroft, 29th July 2010 03:09pm

  18. Supersonic Card Sort

    By Jamie Freeman, 26th July 2010 09:05am

  19. Google is my bitch!

    By Jamie Freeman, 1st July 2010 12:02pm

  20. Our client Rapha are hiring

    By Jamie Freeman, 29th June 2010 09:58am

  21. Growing team

    By Jamie Freeman, 24th June 2010 02:37pm

  22. Bikenic is here!

    By Jamie Freeman, 22nd June 2010 01:45pm

  23. Luddites Unite!

    By Jamie Freeman, 16th June 2010 12:09pm

  24. World Cup Sweepstakes

    By Jamie Freeman, 11th June 2010 01:01pm

  25. Simple is Beautiful

    By Melita Ogden, 10th June 2010 09:05am

  26. Screen burn

    By Jamie Freeman, 2nd June 2010 09:10pm

  27. The howies t-shirt election

    By Joe Holdcroft, 28th May 2010 02:12pm

  28. Birthday treat!

    By Jamie Freeman, 27th May 2010 01:27pm

  29. What makes a decent CV

    By Joe Holdcroft, 21st May 2010 03:32pm

  30. A card-sort skeleton

    By Jamie Freeman, 17th May 2010 10:04am

  31. TextPrefs Survey Report Part 5

    By Jamie Freeman, 14th May 2010 11:58am

  32. TextPrefs Survey Report Part 4

    By Jamie Freeman, 13th May 2010 10:01am

  33. TextPrefs Survey Report Part 3

    By Jamie Freeman, 12th May 2010 09:37am

  34. TextPrefs Survey Report Part 2

    By Jamie Freeman, 11th May 2010 09:02am

  35. TextPrefs Survey Report Part 1

    By Jamie Freeman, 10th May 2010 09:37am

  36. TextPrefs readability survey results

    By Jamie Freeman, 7th May 2010 02:04pm

  37. Brighton goes Green!

    By Jamie Freeman, 7th May 2010 09:47am

  38. Hi, howies do you do

    By Jamie Freeman, 4th May 2010 04:34pm

  39. Houston, we have a problem…

    By Jamie Freeman, 28th April 2010 08:19am

  40. The end of 'like'

    By Jamie Freeman, 22nd April 2010 12:34pm

  41. T-shirt competition

    By Jamie Freeman, 22nd April 2010 10:17am

  42. Off-the-peg, but user centred?

    By Jamie Freeman, 6th April 2010 05:06pm

  43. The suit metaphor and Intellectual Property

    By Jamie Freeman, 19th March 2010 12:55pm

  44. My first week at Message

    By Danny Hannah, 12th March 2010 03:09pm

  45. Of carts and horses

    By Jamie Freeman, 2nd March 2010 02:53pm

  46. A skeptic amongst the SEOs

    By Jamie Freeman, 23rd February 2010 12:20pm

  47. Message turns 15!

    By Joe Holdcroft, 16th February 2010 04:12pm

  48. Personality = Honesty

    By Jamie Freeman, 15th February 2010 02:07pm

  49. Talk about agile

    By Jamie Freeman, 11th February 2010 06:40pm

  50. Drop-down menus; no thanks!

    By Jamie Freeman, 8th February 2010 03:28pm

  51. Happy Christmas from Message!

    By Jamie Freeman, 20th December 2009 01:25pm

  52. Usability testing

    By Jamie Freeman, 10th December 2009 05:23pm

  53. Recommended reading list

    By Jamie Freeman, 18th November 2009 06:00pm

  54. Why redesign your website

    By Jamie Freeman, 9th November 2009 10:05am

  55. Beyond basic web accessibility

    By Jamie Freeman, 25th October 2009 11:42am

  56. The problem with 'Cc:'

    By Jamie Freeman, 17th October 2009 04:52pm

  57. Rapha website redesign

    By Jamie Freeman, 28th May 2009 10:26am

  58. Web design process

    By Jamie Freeman, 26th May 2009 11:00pm

  59. What is 'alt text' for?

    By Jamie Freeman, 14th April 2009 11:00pm

  60. SweetCMS 2 is here!

    By Jamie Freeman, 9th February 2009 12:00am

  61. PAS 78; What it means for you

    By Jamie Freeman, 15th January 2009 12:00am

  62. Client guide to web standards

    By Jamie Freeman, 6th January 2009 12:00am

  63. The Holy Trinity of SEO

    By Jamie Freeman, 29th June 2008 08:13am

  64. What is Caching?

    By Jamie Freeman, 2nd June 2008 11:00pm

  65. Why websites look different in different browsers

    By Jamie Freeman, 28th December 2007 12:00am

  66. Katie Price website launch

    By Jamie Freeman, 5th June 2007 11:00am