IE 8 is fast upon us - NOW WHAT!?

I'm actually pleased with the news that MS is pushing Internet Explorer 8 (IE 8) as an automatic update.

Have you been using or testing your sites in IE 8 yet? If not, you need to be! The numbers aren't that high yet, but I bet they will --thankfully-- be increasing rapidly.

Why thankfully? Well, mainly because IE 8 supports (almost) all of the CSS2.1 specification. For full details check out quirksmode's CSS Compatibility Chart. This means, in theory, that a single set of CSS can be written and --drum roll please-- it will render correctly in IE 8.

Wait! Wait! Wait! Stop the dancing...


...what about that little button there? Yes that one, right there, the "Compatibility Button"! Holy Toggle Switch Batman, why would I want to render a site in IE 7 'mode' in IE 8?

Well, for one thing, not every site is well maintained and it may be a while before people get around to updating their code to work in IE 8. This toggle switch may make your site more palatable to new IE 8 users.

Why do they need to update their code, you ask? There are several ways, that we won't get into here, to get older versions of IE to render 'correctly' - meaning: look the same as more compliant browsers. These 'hacks' or work-arounds will make IE 8 render incorrectly. Hopefully, your work-around of choice has been to use conditional comments to deliver separate CSS files to IE 7 or older. I have been for a while, so I'm really not able to speak to how to un-hack or add-a-hack your CSS if you've been using other methods.

If you have been using conditional comments, simply updating your conditional statements to exclude IE 8 from receiving the custom IE CSS takes only a few seconds. Something like this will do:

< !--[if lte IE 7]-->

Now, to prevent people from using that little IE 7 Toggle Switch and potentially setting your site to always render as IE 7 (and not just for them), add this bit to your document head:

< equiv="X-UA-Compatible" content="IE=8">

This should fix you right up, assuming you're coding valid HTML and CSS to start with. You'll still have to deal with IE 6 & 7 for a little bit longer unfortunately, but the light is at the end of the tunnel now.

--"And now," cried Max, "let the wild rumpus start!" *

NCQA Accrediation and the UXL

We love that the National Committee for Quality Assurance (NCQA) has added a usability testing component to their accreditation process. They are giving insurance companies credit toward accreditation just for testing their websites. This will improve the quality of the interface for all of our insurance company's online presence, yeah!

Mediabarn launches new NCSA site redesign and C-SAVE section.

A little under 6-months after delivering the initial site redesign for the National Cyber Security Alliance's StaySafeOnline.org site, we've done it again.

The initial project utilized an existing design from another firm. Mediabarn made some minor tweaks to the existing designs focusing on content organization and usability issues. We developed the site in Drupal, an open-source CMS, launching in late 2008.

Since the initial launch we have continued to support NCSA with their site content needs and adding several bits of new functionality.

The latest redesign brings a major new face lift to the site without changing the overall structure of the site and it's navigation. None of the content stored in the Drupal CMS was effected by the new design, requiring zero republishing of content. The new design was delivered as fresh Drupal Theme, actually a Zen sub-theme, in under 2 months from concept to completion.

With this redesign we also launched a new site section, Cyber Security Awareness Volunteer Education Program (C-SAVE) .

This project was and continues to be extremely fun to work on. Look for more on this project in the near future. Make sure you check them out.

Consumer Guide Automotive is live!

We are so pleased to announce that the redesigned Consumer Guide Automotive site has launched. Mediabarn partnered with HowStuffWorks to help create a new UI and design - it was a really fun project to work on! Check it out here and start car shopping!

Mediabarn talks it over with Students from Penn State

Today Media Barn met with students from Penn State's IST College, to give them a tour of our business. We also did a UI test exercise where we plucked students from the group and had them walk through one of our recent launches, while the rest of the team watched. We had a great time, they were a bright group.

Mediabarn launches Uplifting Athletes

Today we are proud to announce that we launched the first phase of Uplifting Athletes' website. Uplifting Athletes is an organization that aligns college football with rare diseases and raises them as a national priority through outreach, research, education and advocacy.