I’ve made changes to the project overview page, including a progress indicator that shows how many tasks have been accomplished per checklist, per project. The indicators work on a percentage, but hover your mouse cursor over them for more precise numbers.
Metickulous also has a new logo. I abandoned experiments with the “M” letterform in favor of a stylized checkmark. Working with text tilted 15° started as more of a problem than a solution, but it’s improving as I learn how to work with the odd shape.
Also to do: Improving those pesky OK/cancel buttons on the checklist pages.
What’s next?
May 11 |
design, metick, progress | Comments Off
A battle has been won.
The Metickulous logo went through several concepts before settling on the obvious: a stylized checkmark. It narrowly beat a macro eye, a straight text treatment and an highly-detailed Mardi Gras mask that all worked decently, but strayed from the “utility” theme. The site is usable first, scenic second; Checkmarks are recognizable and carry universal meaning.
But not any checkmark would do. I was playing with blueprints and tools as art, I embossed the site name into a crescent wrench. It took a few hours to change the wrench photo into a cell-shaded graphic, sketch variations on paper, redraw it and add red in Photoshop for punch.
Since we read left-to-right, checkmarks naturally show progression. But tilting the entire logo 15° was risky: It was unusual, and at first difficult to use. Even when I returned to blueprints, the askew shape didn’t want to work. I almost abandoned it when it clicked: The checkmark angle wasn’t a problem so much as a marker. Placed on the edge of a blueprint, rather than inside, it worked.
Since then the theme of progression has steadily taken over utility. Angled stripes, progress bars and increasingly-higher steps are working into the overall design.
A checkmark logo was my first idea, way back when. Now it’s the clear winner. Sometimes obvious solutions are the best, but they still have to earn it.
What’s next?
May 10 |
design, metick, progress | Comments Off
Thanks to some early feedback, I’m going to show this site to some professionals in the field. Certain questions remain: How should the checklists be organized? Does it work in every reasonable browser? Should there be mobile-specific tasks?
Metickulous began after I wrote an article for Webdesigner Depot. That was February. Hopefully there’s still enough interest to get this project off the ground.
What’s next?
April 17 |
code, metick, progress, workflow | Comments Off
