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Okay, who knows if they rule but they certainly do attract their fair share of attention.

Not too long ago I got a call from someone at the local newspaper. They wanted to do a story about our dogs. They’ve seen us out walking them and would like to know more. So a few weeks later we met the reporter at Friendship Square in downtown Moscow, Idaho.

It was a perfect day. Sunny and warm. It was at least in the 50’s. It was also a perfect and typical outing for Beau and Seamus as well. We hadn’t been there 3 minutes when a little girl walked up and wanted to know if she could pet them. Sure! And we were off and running!

People stopping, talking, petting the dogs. Friends we haven’t seen in ages stopping by and saying hello. People we recognize but don’t know stopping to gaze in wonder. The reporter trying to get a word in edgewise and the photographer getting ample shots of all the action.

When all was said and down we had a wonderful, front page article (above the fold, no less) in the Moscow-Pullman Daily News. It was fun. The dogs had a great time and before I could say “No you can’t put a saddle on them and go for a ride”, I had a phone call from a TV station in Spokane wanting to know if we’d bring them up for a TV spot.

We respectfully declined. We didn’t want “the boys” to get a big head and when would we get to Spokane anyway. But we did Have an opportunity to promote the Deaf Dane Rescue, where we adopted Beau and Seamus and to let everyone know that Deaf dogs are wonderful companions.

CG

I recently read an article on Zenhabits.net about creating a minimalist home. It occurs to me that it could be equally beneficial to apply a minimalist style to a web site.

As a virtual space web sites provide a framework for completing work, looking up information, purchasing products and socializing. We talk about “building” web sites and “navigating” around in them. Many web sites mimic in some way “bricks and mortar” stores. So it stands to reason that minimalist design would apply equally as well to a web site or a web page.

What are the benefits of a minimalist web design?

1. Easy to find things. An essential element of minimalist style is simplicity. It is easier to find the important items without a lot of clutter, including photos, graphics, headers, banners, advertisements, links, etc. If you want to see the opposite of simple design visit GoDaddy.com. I can never find anything easily on that site.
2. Quality over quantity. Working hand in hand with simplicity is quality. Opt for fewer items that are important and leave out the little things. The famous example of this would be Google. But there are others. Try smartmusic.com to see a good example of “less is more”.
3. Appealing. You might wonder why a minimalist web site would be more appealing. It’s just a matter of taste, right? Maybe not. Minimalist approaches to web pages often demonstrate an attention to detail and quality for fewer, important items in a way that cannot be afforded to a page with hundreds of competing bits and pieces. It looks clean and well thought out. Perhaps not everyone will like this but I think most of us find less cluttered sites more appealing.
4. Happy visitors and happy web site owners. People who use web sites generally have a specific task to complete. They want to buy a specific item, find a piece of information or complete some task. Less clutter makes their job easier and when your web site helps them accomplish their goals they will enjoy using the web site. Need I say more?

What are some characteristics of a minimalist web page?

• Natural, earthy colors.
• Clean layouts with good contrast and alignment
• Navigation that is easy to follow and allows easy access for multiple audiences.
• Quality graphics and images.
• Repetition of elements and naming conventions.

How to create a minimalist web site.

1. Follow the adage, “less is more”. Discern what the most important elements of your web site and your organization are and focus on those. In other words, “get the big picture” and don’t lose site of it.
2. Find out who your audience is and if you have more than one, provide content for each. For example, don’t force existing customers to wade through information aimed at new customers and don’t confuse new customers with information they may not need or want at this stage.
3. Provide a navigational structure that supports each audience making it easier for everyone to find what they are looking for. If you provide a section for new customers, create a link that says “New Customers”. This may seem obvious but there are a lot of web sites that don’t do this very well.
4. Don’t try to force your site’s visitors to do what you want them to do. Find out what they want and provide it. What’s minimalist about that? It will help you stay focused on the big, important things while keeping your pages simpler.
5. Stay away from complex graphic images and instead stick with clean, straight lines with little or no ornamentation or frills.
6. Use natural colors. This is not the time for lime green and fuchsia .
7. Even though you use neutral, earthy colors apply them in a way that creates good contrast.
8. Provide enough white space between page elements to make them easier to see.
9. Align page elements to carry the straight lines of your images into the layout of the page.
10. Use a lot of repetition through out the site. This is a good idea even if you are not interested in a minimalist design. If you have a logo place it in the same location on every page. the same things goes for log in elements, menus and other navigational elements such as buttons and icons. Carry the repetition in style and labels across the pages of your web site.
11. If in question, keep it simple. Let simplicity be your guide in making decisions about your web design. If an item unnecessarily complicates the design or does not support your online mission then leave it out or move it.

While this is not an exhaustive list but it should help you get started thinking about a minimalist design and how your web site could benefit from some of its characteristics.

I’m not a fan of new years resolutions but the web site called zenhabits.net is just the ticket for people who want to make improvements in their lives.

The ideas are simple and fresh. They are easy to do and inspiring to read.

So go on. Read some posts and go out there and have the best year ever!

I’ve been looking into building a web site that delivers lesson materials for piano students. Not a “learn piano in 24 hours” or “how to play the piano without ever touching a keyboard” sort of thing. There are so many online lessons now and they all guarantee you will be playing like a Pro in no time at all. You won’t even have to,… yuck… Practice!!

What’s wrong with the hard copy methods used currently?

• The paper piano methods being used today are primarily the same ones being used 25-30 (or more) years ago.
• They are out-dated. Don’t ask me on this, ask my students! They won’t hold back, I promise!
• Most of the music in these methods is uninteresting. Again, ask my students and note the eye-rolling that accompanies their response.
• They don’t address good technique, and,
• We have to reclaim “practice” and show it for the great thing that it is: Being engaged and involved in a learning process that is rewarding and fun.

How would an online method work?:

1. Downloadable materials for the teacher to use in the lesson and send home with the student. These materials would replace the method book, theory book, song book, exercise book, etc. It also allows for more choices so students and teachers can choose from several songs for each concept or technique. It’s more flexible.
2. Practice and learning material for students. Online accompaniments for songs, flash games, quizzes, tutorials and other materials to make practicing at home interesting and fun. Let’s face it, for every 1/2 hour at a lesson the student spends 6 days at home. Those 6 days are crucial to the success of a piano student and this is an opportunity to “involve” and “engage”.

Why hasn’t this been done already?

• As with others they may be afraid they can’t do this and protect their materials. There is certainly a fear that people will steal their lesson materials instead buying it. There isn’t time to debate this here but suffice it to say, that may be slowing them down.
• Maybe they are working on it as we speak and I am blissfully ignorant of the effort.
• Many musicians are woefully behind the times when it comes to technology. Let’s face it, as an industry (if you can really call it that) private piano teachers have other things to do that are musical and don’t always have the time and interest in technology. When I was in graduate school, I failed miserably in trying to explain to some of my piano faculty that personal computers would become an important tool in teaching piano. That was in 1987. I like to think I was ahead of my time. In some ways, I may still be when it comes to the Internet as the delivery method for piano lesson materials and practice tools.

Am I really ahead of my time??

• No, yes and maybe. Of course one may post PDF files, graphic musical images, video clips, Flash animations and sound files. This is a start and this is how most people are doing music on the web. But this is not the ultimate learning experience. The ultimate online piano experience, however, would involve a high degree of interactivity and this is still a problem.
• A problem you ask? Yes. There is still no great way to represent graphical, music notation on a web page that allows users to interact with it without downloading special software. At least, not that I am aware of. Flash animations hold the most promise but I’m not sure it is the ultimate solution. MusicXML and other notational data schemes hold promise as well but these require a high degree of technical ability and that dumps us back into specialized software that isn’t necessarily platform independent.
• In the final analysis, however, in some ways doing piano lessons on the web is old news but in other ways, the technology is still not fully there to make online piano lessons the ultimate experience one might hope for.

Now What?

It’s time to quit talking about it and do it.

cg