Because you need it; that’s Y!

It never ceases to amaze me just how a big a place Yahoo! is, physically and virtually. Even after more than six months, I’m still discovering new stars in the distant constellations of the Yahoo! universe.

That’s why I was so excited by my meeting with several members of our design team here in Burbank last week to discuss a series of blog pieces about good user interface (UI) design. Not only did team members volunteer their time to write about design, but they also turned me on to a great Yahoo! UI resource that’s available to everyone, including publishers in and out of our network.

It’s the Yahoo! User Interface blog and it’s quite honestly one of the best design, development and publishing resources out there. The Yahoo! User Interface blog is a companion for two Yahoo! resource libraries, both of which are open to the public: the Yahoo! Design Pattern Library, which offers the Yahoo! take on common interface design issue, and the Yahoo! User Interface Library, a collection of “industrial-grade JavaScript utilities and widgets” that can help you get the most out of today’s browsers.

Here’s a partial list of some of my favorite Yahoo! User Interface blog posts:

• 10 Cool Things About the New Yahoo! Photos—As the name implies, these are some tips on ways that developers and publishers can get the most out of Yahoo! Photos.
• Full Service: The Yahoo Developer Network and the Yahoo User Interface Library—This downloadable article by longtime Brit blogger and Yahoo! front-end developer Chris Heilmann is actually an excerpt from his book, Beginning JavaScript with Dom Scripting and Ajax, From Novice to Professional. It provides a wealth of info about the YUI Library from an implementer’s perspective.
• Global Domination—In which we find that “global variables are evil.”
• Video: Joe Hewitt Talks About FireBug—Joe Hewitt, a longtime Mozilla/Firefox engineer, visited the Sunnyvale campus in May to chat about debugging and other features of his FireBug tool. He offered a great how-to session, which he graciously allowed us to videotape for your edification.

Most of this is pretty advanced stuff geared toward highly tech-adept publishers, developers, interface designers and those daring neophytes willing to jump in with both feet. Whatever your skill level though, we think that you’ll find this a beneficial resource.

Coming up: articles on best practices for user interface design by some of Yahoo’s star designers and user interface experts.

—Michael Mattis, Blog Editor